Monkey Business
by Eilyfe
Summary: After two years of travelling with Jiraiya, Naruto meets up with Sakura on the Island of Danube. A dangerous swamp has grown out of nowhere and mercenaries are flooding the island. With his mission, Jiraiya's antics, and Sakura's good looks, Naruto has more than enough on his plate. But when he hears that Sasuke isn't far away, things quickly become even more complicated.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Everything belongs to Kishimoto.

 **Reading Instruction:** Enjoy yourself.

 **AN:** My gratitude for all the editing folks over at DLP.

* * *

 **MONKEY BUSINESS**

Chapter I

* * *

Rushing wind. The kind that left you deaf while you leapt from branch to branch. There were other sounds, of course. Naruto knew he'd hear them all the moment he landed and jerked the world back to clarity. The noise of insects filling the evening. The beat of his heart. Sandals on wood.

Sakura leapt right beside him, her feet touching the branches in perfect synchrony to his as they pushed off again. It gave him the willies. It also made him glance at her more often. Two years apart had given her a kind of charm that made it hard to focus.

They rushed along the outskirts of an unnamed swamp, together, even though she should have been in Konoha and he with the old pervert.

Naruto still did not understand how all this came about.

The swamp, in any case, was unnamed because it was a newborn—two months old, if you were picky about it. Such a sudden growth of muck and still water raised eyebrows, especially on an island where the people didn't even have a word for swamp.

He shot another sideway glance at Sakura and sent a mental _Thank You_ to Jiraiya. The old pervert had insisted just a month ago that he'd gotten too tall for his old clothes, and why would the apprentice of The Most Suave Man On Earth run around in _garish_ tatters anyway?

He hadn't known what the word 'garish' meant, but Jiraiya's expression filled him in just fine. They fought, he was mulish, the old man was mulish, and ultimately what solved the issue had been a coin toss, an ice-cream of reconciliation and a night full of stories.

All things said and done, Naruto thought he didn't make too bad a cut these days.

Just in time, too . . .

They stopped their sprint across tree tops once they reached a gnarled ash tree covered in lichen. The noise of insects and birds came back, as did the foul smell of nature grown lazy that he'd managed to ignore while moving.

"That's the last one," said Sakura, holding a map in her hand and smiling at him.

She gave the tree a look of relief. The same kind that Naruto had seen a hundred times on Jiji's face when he only had one document to sign left before they could go for lunch.

"I'll get it," said Naruto, pushing the mental picture of the deceased Hokage away. Sakura's voice and smile made that a lot easier than when he was alone.

Besides, it was time to show that apprenticed to The Most Suave Man On Earth was The Most Amazing Student Under The Stars.

Naruto reached into his backpack and pulled out a rectangular sheet of paper. He slapped it against the tree and used chakra to make it stick. Then, with blood from his thumb, he smeared a circle on it.

There was no reaction from Sakura, but then, she hadn't shown any for the last twenty trees either.

The best part was yet to come anyway.

"That's it," he said. "I can do the main seal now, and then we can go back and find the old pervert."

She studied at the small paper sticking to the tree. "Are you sure we shouldn't leave that to Jiraiya-sama?"

Naruto waved her off. "'s all good. Isn't anything too complicated. Gimme the map, will you?"

She was a bit hesitant, then shrugged and gave him the map. "Sure."

He called up a clone to transform into a desk. Then, with precise strokes of his thumb, he put the seal together. Jiraiya had told him that, even if blood made seals more potent, most shinobi used ink because blood was in limited supply. But since he had the Kyuubi healing him it wouldn't be a bother.

Soon, red lines wriggled across the back of the map. He could smell Sakura as she leaned over his shoulder to get a better look.

 _Concentrate, Uzumaki_ , he thought, putting down the last detail. Seals could be volatile. Jiraiya had made that clear when he botched one on purpose, exploding a stack of filled Ramen bowls.

"Done," he said.

A chakra surge later, pieces of paper burst into flames on twenty trees around the swamp, leaving no trace behind. The seal would measure whether the swamp still grew, and if so at which speed. On the map, a blue line drew itself, next to it a bunch of numbers for measurements—none of which he knew anything to do with. That was Jiraiya's part of the deal.

Naruto's lips twitched. A job well done.

With the rolled up map in his hand he dispelled the table-clone and stretched himself. "Back to town then," he said. "'S better if we hurry. We'll be in trouble if we don't get the old pervert out of the bar before night sets in."

"How so?"

"Most of the special ladies show up. Right impossible to get him out with them around."

Sakura made a face. "He's . . . quite a character, isn't he?"

"You've got no idea," said Naruto, though he couldn't help the grin, which, in the right light, could be seen to wander into a slightly more lecherous position. Luckily, evening in a swamp made for bad light.

They were about to set off when Naruto became aware of being watched. His meager sense for chakra pinged away in the back of his head.

He wheeled around to the source.

All he saw was rapidly advancing fur and two balloon-like eyes. There was a sudden weight on his shoulder. The distinct smell of animal sweat. Then it was gone. He was left staring at his empty hands.

Close by, a male monkey watched them. He looked as though he considered using his newly acquired map as a cape, but then he backed off from that idea and began studying the strange paper by holding it upside down.

Ignoring how it made him feel to have been stolen from by an animal, Naruto used his best bed-room tip-toeing style to approach, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.

"All good, little fella. I don't want to do anything to you," he said, inching closer, "but you've got somethin' important there, so I'd be really happy if you could, you know, give it to me . . . "

The monkey, who sported on his chin a fuzzy patch of fur resembling a goatee, narrowed his eyes.

Then he turned his head to Sakura. Using the inattention, Naruto leapt. The monkey swung himself with a liana atop of Naruto's head, let out a shriek, and scampered down the other side.

There was heat all over Naruto's face. He just knew he looked like a tomato right now.

Sakura snickered. The red crept just that little bit farther for it.

"I don't think that'll work, Naruto," she said, with that thin line of lips pressed together not because you're angry but because you can't hold in your laughter any other way.

The monkey stepped cautiously around Naruto and toward Sakura. Then he held out the map and pointed at her back.

"It wants to . . . make a deal?" said Naruto.

"Looks like it," said Sakura.

"Do monkeys do that?"

Sakura crouched and rifled through her bag. "Not the faintest. This one seems to . . . "

She fished a ration bar out of the bag, the wrapping reading 'FOOD IS PLEASURE: TASTY BARS FOR STRONG SHINOBI—NOW WITH EXTRA CRUNCH'

She held out the bar, gesturing at the map.

The monkey shook his head, raising his arm three times. Sakura took out two more bars and held up all three of them. The monkey nodded imperiously at a place two feet away from Sakura.

She put the bars down there, then retreated. The monkey jumped over to the bars, throwing the map at Sakura, and for a short moment Naruto felt a surge of vindication as the little shite was confronted with the fact that he didn't know how to carry three bars, only being able to take one in each hand. Then the monkey lowered his head and took the last bar between his teeth.

Next to Naruto, Sakura made an impression of professionalism. He knew it was faked though. She wanted to laugh, he could see that.

Suppressing the urge to throw up his arms, he said, "Now that we've got the map, let's hurry. I've got enough of this swamp for the day."

Sakura nodded. Together they made for the trees.

As Naruto leapt onto the first one, he thought he heard a repressed snigger and lowered his head, his ears hot as burning coals.

* * *

Kinzoku was the central town on the island of Danube. And it had precisely two things going for it. The first of those things was the city's port, out of which a steady supply of material found its way into hands that just waited to use it for the annual Danube Festival in Kinzoku. That was a good thing, because when Naruto had turned sixteen last month Jiraiya had promised him that he'd get to enjoy the next festival they chanced upon.

Jiraiya had, after all, no intention to lose his title as best unknown godfather. Not after he'd seen the light at least.

The second valuable point in Kinzoku, which arguably had made it the biggest city on the island, was that here, Danube's first brothel had been founded. A happenstance that soon spawned a whole evolution of the islanders' views. Nowhere was that more obvious than on a specific street in Kinzoku that was lit with red lanterns, jammed solid with drunks, and drowning in an arousing, flower-like fragrance.

In the noble establishment of Lady Hyume, _The Finely Distilled Rose_ , which was considered among regulars to be the finest of its kind, The Most Suave Man On Earth shared a cup of Sake with two courtesans.

He liked the smell of both, one more smoky and alluring in a darker, mysterious way, like an unknown campfire in a forest at night; the other fresh, fruity—if he were to guess: powdered with some sort of mixture between apple and cinnamon—much like an invitation into a warm and sunny home, behind the doors of which unspeakable delights would occur, of course, but never without a smile.

And yet . . .

He held them closer to him, feeling their curves press into his sides. No. There was no 'and yet.' He wouldn't let this evening be ruined.

"Do you wish to drink more, master?"

Jiraiya smiled down at her. The smile of a true gentleman. "I'd much rather hold you like this."

His hand wandered a bit lower.

And in a game the rules of which had been perfected across the history of humankind, the courtesan replied with a demure look, acted out with startling precision, and nestled up against him some more, making for all intents and purpose the impression of a young, shy girl freshly fallen in love.

Perfect. Divine!

Then there was boisterous laughter from a sectioned-off area close by.

 _And yet . . ._

Jiraiya sighed. As a Sannin it didn't behoove him to run away from reality—though there was an argument to be made that all three of the Sannin were very good runners. The reality, stark, naked, ugly, was that Jiraiya of the Sannin felt crowded in a place that usually promised intimacy and privacy, at least in regards to how much he acknowledged the presence of other men.

These goddamn flunkies though had been grinding his gears for an hour now. He was all for the enjoyment of life, his own, but also his fellow man's. But from the din alone he surmised that the whole place was overflowing with people, and _that_ was definitely a sign of too many men for his tastes. Crudely spoken, the ratio of women to men in a whorehouse should never be inverted. If there was one universal law, it was this.

And right now, someone dared to swing a pickaxe at such an important pillar of living together in peace and fraternity.

Worse, over the last hour, the courtesans tending to him had reduced their numbers from five to two, and already he feared that should another man enter the house, that number would shrink even further. Perhaps he'd be left all alone in the end. An old man, deserted even by those he paid for their company. Somewhere in that mess was an actual existential trauma to discover and investigate, but introspection wasn't really why he was here.

The soft ring of a bell alerted him to another newcomer.

Jiraiya closed his eyes. There it was . . .

He heard footsteps and then the paper-wall sectioning them off from the other customers was pulled aside.

"That's, erm, that's it for tonight, ladies. He won't be needing you . . . anymore?"

Ah. A familiar voice. Why did it sound so unsure of itself? Jiraiya opened his eyes, and found Naruto fixed in a mental battle. Jiraiya grinned. It seemed like the lad couldn't quite decide whether to stare at the courtesans, both of which showed more than enough skin to incite the mind of a young man, or keep up a face of faked indifference, by looking at . . . Sakura, was it? Yes, by looking at Sakura, who herself regarded the whole scene with the kind of silent expression that never spelled happiness, no matter which woman you found it on.

Jiraiya nodded and gave the ladies a last good squeeze. On Sakura's face, the respect for authority found itself in bitter conflict with reality.

The more mature courtesan turned an enquiring gaze toward Naruto. "Do you wish a drink, valued customer?"

"Er . . . not right now, thank you," said Naruto. He'd found his resolve and stared with admirable tenacity at point just above Jiraiya's shoulder.

A last saucy wink, saying "You know how to call for us," then both courtesans had slid shut the paper door.

Naruto plopped himself down on the ground. Sakura seated herself in a more dignified way.

Silence descended on them, thick and unmistakably filled with a clash of disparate emotions ranging from silent outrage over awkwardness to humor.

Ah, to be young again . . .

Hearing another shout of laughter from the area beside him, Jiraiya tapped a finger on the table and, with the other hand, reached for his pipe. A web of lines stretched across the floor and up the paper walls. It flashed blue once, then died down.

"You're back. Let's see it," said Jiraiya.

Naruto handed him the map.

"Any problems with the seal?" Jiraiya asked, studying the measurements.

"Worked well enough," said Naruto. "No real problem to speak of . . . well, to be honest it looks like any other swamp, old man. There's mosquitos and snakes and birds—"

"And the occasional monkey," Sakura added with a smile.

Jiraiya glanced at her. A memory strong enough to break her out of her silent anger so quickly? He would have to investigate later, especially with _that_ kind of expression on Naruto's face. Part of being a good story teller was always to know where good stories were buried and then to not let go, like an angry dog that found a treat.

"Looks good to me," said Jiraiya. "Well done, both of you."

"Why is the growth of the swamp so important?" asked Sakura.

Jiraiya placed the map on the table. "It shows intent."

"How so?"

Jiraiya traced the area circled by the blue line with his finger. "Most people don't go around putting unnatural swamps into places for no reason. Give me one."

Naruto grinned. "Landscaping."

"Funny guy," said Jiraiya with an equally stretched grin, "but don't be too immature, a lady is watching. Now, give me a real reason."

For a second Naruto struggled against the patches of red on his cheeks and avoided looking at Sakura. "Could be to hide something," he muttered.

"If it's that," said Sakura, sitting up straighter, "the swamp might not grow anymore if it already hides what it should. And if it still grows, it has another aim? Like . . . a provocation?" She frowned at the map. "To get Konoha involved?"

"One out of two," said Jiraiya. "It's unlikely that whoever did this planned to get Konoha involved. Danube is far off and usually out of the sphere of shinobi influence. Then again, perhaps the swamp is meant to divert attention in general? If it's there, there _must_ be something happening inside it, right? While the real business usually goes on somewhere else . . . "

"So we know nothing," said Naruto.

"Think again," said Jiraiya. "We know for a fact that there is _something_ happening on this island. And we know that we might run in circles if we _only_ concentrate on the swamp itself. Now whether the sodden thing still grows or not, we've done a good job for the day." He put away his pipe. "There's something else I've got to tell you, but this isn't the right place."

Jiraiya broke the seal, and they made to leave _The Distilled Rose_ hearing the hoots and groans of far too many men to be comfortable. As Jiraiya went by the register, a paper door nearby slid open and a courtesan swayed outside. In the split-second the door was open, he saw a group of men laze on tatami mats inside the room, their arms full of women. They wore strange black bands around their biceps.

More than enough to make an honest man angry.

Not to appear suspicious, Jiraiya stepped outside and felt a blast of cold night air hit him in the face.

He'd taken notice of the men's faces, memorized them even, because that had been the direction where all the annoying laughter had come from, and he'd be damned if he didn't find a way, somehow, to make those men's lives a bit more difficult if they still were around in the coming days.

No one ever said a Sannin wasn't capable of pettiness.

* * *

Perched on a tree, a monkey with a goatee observed the glittering lights of Kinzoku just a mile away. He had really no idea why he left the swamp behind, but something in his primitive brain told him that Kinzoku was the place to be right then. He felt exhilarating jolts when his amygdala activated: one for the image of a strange blond ape, the mocking of which had been delicious; and one for the image of a pink ape, just as strange in her form, but beautiful, exotic, and a good business-ape. In his esteemed opinion: altogether attractive qualities in a mate.

The monkey finished off the ration bar in his paw with a crunch and looked at the crumpled wrapper in his hand. He couldn't make sense of it, but he found the shapes pretty and fascinating. Especially the F, the I, and the P. They gave him a strong sense of identity somehow.

Strange stuff.

Shrugging, Fip scrambled down the tree. And as he knuckled his way through the high grass, aiming straight for the city, he never even once questioned how come he had no other memories beside of those two other monkeys. He just knew instinctively that this was a fine way to function.

* * *

"Odd geezer," said Naruto, settling down in the room they had rented for the night, while Jiraiya scribbled on a scroll and Sakura unpacked her bag. "Looked as if we're Ramen thieves or somethin'."

Jiraiya finished the last line. "Why do you think that is?"

"Maybe you scared him?"

"I'm as gentle as they come."

Sakura unsealed a little teapot and a set of cups, all with pretty flowers on them that Naruto for the life of him could not identify.

"I don't think he was scared of us," said Sakura. "He seemed anxious in general if that makes sense." She lined up the cups on the flat table, then looked about the room. "You see a tap, Naruto?"

"There's communal showers down the hallway," he said. "Not sure you want that kind of water . . . " Then an idea struck and he cleared his throat. "Gimme the pot, will ya? I know just the thing."

After she deposited it in his hands, he put it on the floor, went through hand seals and concentrated. A moment later, the pot filled itself with water and he breathed a sigh of relief. This Jutsu was always a fifty-fifty kind of deal. He wasn't _really_ a water guy, but Jiraiya had been clear that he'd learn at least some basic survival stuff under his watch. Something about utilitics and not varnishing a solid reputation—whatever that meant.

Naruto suspected anyway that the rain from yesterday had helped.

Sakura took the filled pot and eyed the water inside. Then she said "That's really useful, thanks, Naruto!" and if that weren't enough, she also smiled and asked, "Mind teaching me that one when you've got time? Getting water is always such a chore when I'm on missions."

To which Naruto couldn't really say anything save, "No trouble. It ain't too hard and you've got a knack for control and stuff, so you'll get it easy for sure," ignoring all the while Jiraiya, who gave him the thumbs up behind Sakura's back.

"Anyway," said Naruto, scratching at his neck, "What's that you wanted to tell us, old pervert?"

Jiraiya stared at them in silence for a good while after that question. Naruto cocked his head. Jiraiya didn't grow serious often, but when he did it mostly meant that listening up was important because something bad was going on.

"I'm sure," said Jiraiya, "that you've been wondering why Tsunade sent you on this mission, Sakura. Danube is a good distance away from Konoha. Usually problems in this area wouldn't be in our jurisdiction, and if they were we'd send people more inconspicuous and . . . well, skilled, than a team of Chūnin and Genin."

Sakura nodded while tending to the tea in a mechanical manner, as if she'd done this kind of thing a hundred times already while listening to important information.

"We _are_ a disparate team," she said. "To be honest, that's mostly because of you though, Jiraiya-sama. Genin and Chūnin is one thing, but throwing a Sannin into the mix? I don't think the swamp is why we're really here."

 _True enough_ , thought Naruto, _then again, the old pervert is overkill for almost any mission._

He'd just traveled with him for so long now that he hadn't seen it earlier.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, a group of synapses fired at high-speed, trying to make sense of everything, and somehow—a second later—the picture of Orochimaru and Sasuke flickered into existence in his mind.

Naruto's pulse quickened. While the image kept bouncing around, his head tried to supply reasons for why this was actually the case.

"It's Sasuke," he said, voice grim. Because why else organize a get together of Team Seven?

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. He didn't seem surprised. "It is," he said. "One of my contacts on Danube might have seen someone that looks like him—I'll have to verify that later on. Whether Orochimaru himself is on the island we don't know; the chance is rather low though. It's clear, however, that he's interested in it. Our mission is to find out why, and if we've got the time, to take care of the swamp thing. They're likely related anyway."

"So we're foiling the snake bastard," said Naruto. "And we're looking for clues about Sasuke."

"That's not what he said, Naruto," said Sakura with some exasperation.

Jiraiya waved her off. "He's got selective hearing. It's fine."

Naruto stared at the cup of tea in front of him. Granny Tsunade was mental if she thought she could send him on a mission like this and not have him look for Sasuke. And since he never thought of her as silly—old and drunk, yes, never silly—he knew this was one of those look beneath-the-underneath moments, where what you actually had to do was different than what they told you to.

Naruto felt a thrill. Should they find Sasuke, they'd have a chance to convince him to come home . . .

He saw his expression mirrored on Sakura's face. They would find him, and they would bring him back, one way or another: the other way being a good-natured fist in Sasuke's face, so that he could taste each knuckle once, solely for the sake of feeling how upsetting it actually was to others to be such a miserable bastard and leave in the first place.

"So," said Naruto, emerging from his thoughts, "what're we goin' to do? It's not like he'll show himself or anything if we ask nicely. Sasuke's too . . . Sasuke-ish for a mistake like that."

"Sasuke-ish . . ." Jiraiya pronounced the word slowly, as if to taste it. Then his brows furrowed. "I hope both of you understand that right now he's an enemy to Konoha." He observed them, then sighed, murmuring "Should've known . . . " to himself. Louder he continued, "Listen up. I know he's your teammate, and we'll do whatever we can to find him. But!"—Jiraiya jabbed his finger at Naruto's face—"And I'm serious on this, don't go into this thinking of him as a friend you just need to have some words with."

Jiraiya went on, "The world's not that easy, kiddo. It doesn't work like that, even if it damn well should. Listen, I . . ." Jiraiya stopped himself mid-sentence, shrugged his way out of the remembrance, and tried to muster a smile that hung sullenly on half-mast. "Look, I'm not saying that you go for his jugular the moment you meet him—settle down, I know you wouldn't anyway, Naruto—but I want you to keep in mind that _he_ might do it."

The look on Jiraiya's face, of having grapple hooks tearing at your gaze and pulling it forcefully into the past, had been enough to keep Naruto still until that last part.

But some things you couldn't let stand.

"He won't do that!" Lowering his voice, Naruto went on, "He won't. He's still Sasuke, and even if he's all obsessed with his brother and can't really see much else he won't kill us. It's . . . dumb is what it is"—Naruto gripped the part of his shirt where two years prior Sasuke had put a dent in him—"he'd rough us up or insult us, but he'd never go for the kill."

"I also don't think he'd kill us . . ." said Sakura, her voice carrying far more conviction than Naruto's.

Staring at a spot on Jiraiya's hand guards, Naruto remembered that he'd never told Sakura about Sasuke's Chidori. For all she knew, they'd knocked themselves silly with Taijutsu. And if he was honest, he didn't want to tell her any different.

Jiraiya sighed. "I really should've known . . . Okay, listen, I see it won't get me anywhere to argue this, but I still want you to be careful if you meet him. He's been with Orochimaru for two years now. If deserting your village doesn't change you, then _that_ definitely will. Now get some sleep, you two."

"And where'll you be?" Naruto asked as Jiraiya put on his jacket.

"Doing some night-time investigating. Can't be too careful."

Sakura shot him a blank look. "Right . . . "

"Get yourself to bed," he said. "Tomorrow will be a long day."

* * *

Naruto hugged a chopstick. It was life-sized, a bit wet at the bottom, and smelled faintly of noodle broth. He'd also had a strange conversation with Teuchi. About the toppings that would fit best to someone swimming in a pool of chakra currently being drained like an unclogged toilet, with the appropriate noise, of course.

He turned on his stomach, some saliva trickling down his chin.

A second chopstick approached, all pink, with delicate engravings. He giggled at the thought of holding that chopstick as well.

And because dreams are just that, the normal chopstick which he'd hugged so far didn't make much of a scene and evaporated, freeing space in Naruto's arms for the pink one. No struggle, because why ever would chopsticks fight?

With a salacious swing of its quadratic curves, the pink chopstick walked closer and then tapped his shoulder. Naruto reached for it but the chopstick, perhaps a bit bashful, retreated.

"Hehe . . . a bit shy?" he mumbled into his pillow. "Or d'you like to tease?"

"Naruto . . ."

Sakura's voice penetrated the haze of his dream. However, in that lurid place in-between dream and wakefulness was usually when the strangest things happened. With some anticipation in his gut, and after two years on the road with Jiraiya, Naruto half-expected the pink chopstick to turn into a scantily clad woman any moment now.

"Naruto."

The whisper just got a lot sharper. He opened his eyes blearily to Sakura, who was shaking his shoulder.

The thought "not naked" passed between his ears, then he noticed that the moon still shone into their room, kick-starting shinobi instincts he usually dialed down while sleeping.

"I'm up," he whispered back, feeling for the kunai under his pillow. If Sakura didn't wake him in the night to cuddle, only a distant possibility, then something more dangerous was going on.

"Chakra," said Sakura. "One signature, lower floor. Not Jiraiya-sama, but it's . . . strong."

"You think he's here for us?"

"We're the only residents right now, I checked the register before we went to our room."

Outside they heard footfall up the stairs.

Now, given such a situation, shinobi with good training were supposed to weigh their options, mainly: stay and fight or get the hell out. Such a decision should be made on a rational basis, Jiraiya always said, and there was no shame in choosing flight if your enemy was strong enough to make meat patties out of you. The most important technique a shinobi could learn was to stay alive, because dead men didn't just tell no tales, with minimal exceptions they were also entirely useless most of the time.

So, having weighed his options for all of half a second, Naruto jumped to his feet in his pajamas. Just as the signature arrived before the room, he delivered a flying round-house kick to the door.

The kick broke the door in two with enough force to unhinge both parts, sending them crashing into whoever graced their doorstep. Using the moment of surprise, Naruto leapt forward, kunai ready, and barely had to time to catch a fist. The punch catapulted him back into the room. He needed both arms to brace himself for his fall so the kunai clattered to the floor.

Just that his journey didn't stop how he predicted. Instead he went right through the wall. He landed with his back on the pavement outside the inn. Looking up he saw the stars, the moon, then Sakura as she jumped after him, picked him up from the cobbles and leapt to another roof.

"You alright?"

"'m fine," he said, getting back to his feet. That wasn't quite how he'd expected to find himself in her arms.

From the hole, a woman jumped down into the street, then stared right at them with cold indifference. Naruto knew that he was hardy enough to cash in on a lot of hits, but _that_ had hurt. He couldn't remember the last time a fist sent him flying like that.

The kunoichi leapt after them.

Naruto took to another roof with Sakura.

"Not in the city," he said to her. "Worst case we've got to pay for the damages."

Sakura's carefully assembled, shinobi-adequate expression cracked. " _That's_ your concern?"

"One of them," he said, clearing the last roof at high speed and vaulting over the wall circling Kinzoku.

Sakura really had no understanding how things like this panned out. But he knew. Oh, yes, he knew well how, in a merchant town, 'capitalistic interests,' as Jiraiya called it, trumped being nice to a man who just got attacked any time of day. However dangerous this was, he wouldn't risk Gama-chan's belly again. The door and the wall were bad enough already for one night.

"She's following us."

Naruto sped up. A good mile away from Kinzoku they stopped. It was a cold night to wear a pajama outside.

The woman touched down a few feet away.

"Can't let a guy sleep'n peace?" Naruto asked. "Who're you?"

He had a moment to appreciate her speed, then all his brainpower was relegated to blocking and diverting her punches, all of which had enough force behind them to make his hands hurt.

Her knuckles sliced by, close enough to split hairs on his cheek. Clones, he thought. If you couldn't get them with one pair of fists, you could always try with a few dozen more. He jerked back from her fist, switched to the cross-shaped seal—

The kunoichi grabbed his wrists.

There was a light in her eyes, then her hands stood in flames. Heat seared through his flesh where they touched. A scream clawed out of his throat. Suddenly the flaming hand was gone, and Sakura stood next to him, fist clenched, arm outstretched. Naruto shrugged out of his burning shirt.

"Let me take a look," Sakura said, hands glowing green and hovering above his wrist. "You're always so reckless," she added, looking at him with some worry in her eyes as she kept healing him.

"That's how I fight," Naruto said with a wince as the cool sensation of Sakura's chakra spread through his arm. "Where's she?" he asked.

"Didn't fly far, I'm afraid," said Sakura. "We need to coordinate."

"Can you hit like that again?"

"Any time."

Naruto grinned at the touch of pride in her voice.

* * *

The sizzle of fire alerted Naruto of the kunoichi's return. She sped at them, both arms trailing behind her, drawing fiery lines into the night.

His mind worked quickly.

Jiraiya's Teachings of Combat – Entry 37: Don't dive in without knowing jack about what's up, stupid.

He'd had kind of forgotten that rule when he kicked in the door, but now it was present, right at the front of his mind—and also lingering as phantom spasm in the wrist Sakura had just healed.

Clones popped into existence beside him. They wasted no time bum rushing the kunoichi, trying to figure out what she could do, how she fought, which way her ass could be kicked the most efficiently.

He, in the meantime, settled down on his haunches and watched the fight. In this matter what happened after he dispelled his clones was far more important than observing every move they made now. Because dispelling always gave him a strange gut feeling. Nothing precise, but an instinctual way to respond.

Not that this was a new skill. He'd known for a while now that the longer he fought the same opponent with clones, the stronger he'd get right then during the fight. It just never had been clear until Jiraiya told him to stay back as long as his clones went about their business. Until then he'd always thought it was just him growing more awesome on the spot.

The kunoichi—hands lit like red, angry iron—laid waste to the army of clones with grace that seemed unreal, tapping them, then evading and moving on, eliciting screams and the sound of burning flesh as she went.

You couldn't really call what he did analyzing, Naruto knew, because for that more of his brain would have to be engaged. Rather he watched anxiously for them to be done, to get his gut feeling, while bouncing on his haunches like a mad squirrel.

Sitting back was the worst. The endless sessions of patience the old pervert made him sit through on a daily basis always had that feel about them, of a prison without Ramen, the ugliest of all worlds combined.

If that's what it took to become a great general, like Jiraiya said, then screw greatness and all the forms it rode in on. He'd just become exceptional instead. A general who'd be strong enough to lay everyone out regardless of prior information. That'd make a much cooler Hokage anyway. Who'd ever want to read 'and then he waited some more until he finally got a move on' about himself in the history books?

The last clone died an agonizing death that sent a shiver down his spine which was overridden immediately by relief.

Finally!

Naruto jumped to his feet.

"You know your part?" he asked Sakura, who had watched the pitched slaughter of clones with morbid curiosity.

"Yes," she said. "Do they really feel no pain?"

He shrugged. "I don't. They're dead anyway."

The kunoichi walked toward them, not making the impression of having even had a good workout. He'd at least hoped for heavy breathing. The woman was composed though, and he knew he found this kind of composure really annoying and also strangely familiar, something he wanted to put a fist to.

"Let's go."

Naruto and Sakura shot forward, again in that strange synchrony—which he _knew_ was her doing—and soon they were obscured by a second massive wave of clones. His gut told him one thing: getting her immobile would require some sacrifice.

The clones began their assault again, and he mixed with them, and then took, on purpose, a hit right to the stomach that sent him skidding across the floor. As the kunoichi glanced at him, he thought, _Yes, it's the real me, now come get me and we can get on with this_.

Ignoring the other clones she sped at his prone body, arms up to the shoulders wreathed in fire.

Her palm came at him, a solid sheet of flames.

He lifted his hands to block the hit.

As her palm closed in, two spurts of water from his clones—a simple technique horribly over-powered—hit her hands, enveloping both of them in a curtain of steam.

Flesh met flesh, luckily without fire between both sides, but even then it felt much like taking hold of a pot right out of the oven.

 _But that'll do_ , he thought, gritting his teeth through the pain. He held fast to her hands while more and more clones piled on her, grabbing at her legs and shoulders. _You're not getting out of this_.

And she wouldn't because his gut also told him that she hadn't once used an attack to get rid of several clones at once, which meant Taijutsu and fancy, hot arms: nothing to get you out of a pinch if you were already pinned down.

"Now!—ahh, hot hot hot!" he screamed, as the kunoichi funneled more chakra into her arms, letting them go up in flames once more.

A long shadow passed over them. A good distance behind the cluster of clones and the kunoichi, more clones had formed a tree-high whip, generating momentum, holding one another at their arms and legs. And at the end of that whip hung Sakura, fists all revved up for whatever trick she did to punch like Grandma Tsunade.

An ominous whistle, then the human mace crashed down on them with a furious outcry.

" _Shannaro!_ "

* * *

Naruto woke to the sensation of Sakura's chakra coursing through his body. It healed the damage of which he'd taken little notice during the attack—mostly rock splinters that had gotten under his skin. The reason for him being unconscious, and he'd do his best to never tell her that, wasn't so much the pain he cashed in on after Sakura's fist hit the kunoichi and also him, but rather the sheer devastation that occurred afterward.

The way one punch of hers had entirely reshaped the landscape jarred so much with his prior picture of her as someone to be protected—now as a medic nin even more so—that he'd been unable to cope with it.

Hence the world turning black.

Sakura's face hovered over his, concern written all over it. "Is it better now? I didn't think it'd reach you like that."

He smiled, still half-grappling with this new revelation. "'s alright, Sakura. 'm fine. That wouldn't ever kill me before I get to be Hokage."

"Normally that's the kind of sentence that'd make me look for a concussion," she said. "But in your case that'd mean you've been concussed your whole life." Her hands stopped glowing. "You've got burns on your palms but I blocked the pain receptors for now. I can mix a salve for that when we're back at the inn."

Yeah, the inn. He really couldn't wait to get back there . . . Not because of the salve: the Kyuubi would take care of his burns. But he needed some peace and quiet to process all this.

Naruto climbed to his feet and found that this way the destruction Sakura had caused became even more apparent. Little of the high grass could be seen anymore; the whole ground was rocky and upturned, like a field ploughed by a Bijū with a penchant for agriculture; here and there trees stuck out of the rubble the wrong way around, thick roots hanging about their trunks like bad toupees.

You couldn't ever be sure with shinobi, but the odds of anyone surviving a direct hit of a punch like this were somewhere about zero.

"So where's she?" he asked, trying to find a half-destroyed body between the rubble and shoving away the implication of what Sakura's fists could do to a human.

"Escaped," said Sakura, her tone taking on a dangerous edge. "I don't know how, but there's no body anywhere."

A problem presented itself. What to be more afraid of? Sakura's anger at not having succeeded, or the thought that a kunoichi strong enough to survive _that_ could still be lingering around?

Naruto put on his best smile. The one he'd always used when he tried to wheedle more bowls out of Teuchi.

"'s not your fault, Sakura."

"Of course it's not my fault," she said, the edges around her eyes softening.

Naruto nodded winsomely. "Must've been some special Jutsu, to make her escape like that. Can't tell stuff like that from the get go."

"It _is_ a bit hard to predict, isn't it?"

"Right about that," said Naruto. "Woman's got tricks in her bag, that's for sure. Can't be too careful. At least now we know. That's good."

Sakura spent another thirty seconds crunching a pebble to death under her sandals. Then she sighed and the poor thing found relief.

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Naruto."

"No idea what you mean."

"Of course," she said, her lips pulling up. "We should look around. No matter how good she is, she might've lost something during the fight or her escape."

"Way ahead of you there," said Naruto.

Sakura turned and came face to face with a crowd of clones climbing through the rubble, searching for clues.

"When did you . . . "

"A moment ago," he said.

Because if there was one thing mastering the Kage Bunshin taught you, it's that deciding on doing just one thing isn't anything you have to settle for if you don't want to. When life gave you the choice of calming Sakura on the one hand and securing yourself against a possible attack on the other, then in his humble opinion, Uzumaki Naruto was uniquely qualified to do both.

A moment later, one of the clones ran up to them and handed him a black cloth. "That's all, boss. Nothin' else we can find in this mess."

The clone offered Sakura a cheeky salute, then puffed away.

Naruto held the cloth up to his eyes. "That look familiar to you, Sakura?"

Sakura shook her head. "Nothing I know."

"How 'bout we take this to the old pervert and see what he's got to say 'bout this."

"Not necessary," came Jiraiya's voice from behind them. He stood a few yards away from them, balancing on one of the upturned trees, surveying the destruction.

"That's Tsunade for you," he muttered. "Should've known she'd make a little monster out of you . . . "

"A bit late, aren't ya?" said Naruto.

Jiraiya shrugged. "I was busy. But for now we should . . . vacate the premises."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "They comin'?"

"Yup," said Jiraiya. "Let's leg it."

Which they did, and just in time to reach the high grass where they could hide. From Kinzoku, a long row of torches wound itself to Sakura's landscaping project. Naruto immediately saw the wisdom in Jiraiya's advice. He knew just too well who'd be held responsible if they found them there . . .

* * *

When they arrived back at the inn, Naruto felt the loss of sleep getting to him. Before he could nap until sunrise though, Jiraiya insisted on a report. Apparently such an encounter wasn't just brushed off for a night even if they gave him a rough description and a rundown on the way back.

Sakura had stretched a bed sheet across the broken door frame, but the hole in the wall was conspicuously absent.

Naruto glanced at Jiraiya.

"What'd you do?"

"Patched it up, obviously."

Sakura knelt before the table which had avoided destruction by a hair's breadth. Rubbing her arms she said, "There's a draft though. Genjutsu?"

"Very good," said Jiraiya. "You could learn something from her, Naruto. She's got an eye for detail."

"So you're shafting the owner?" said Naruto.

"It's a compromise. He gets money for the door, that should be enough."

"Does _he_ know of your compromise?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "If it bothers you that much, you can pay him for the wall. As it stands, the door was pretty expensive already so you might not want to burden your wallet too much."

Naruto resisted the urge to reach for Gama-chan. He knew already that his wallet weighed less than before the attack. The old pervert constantly went on about 'fiscal responsibility'; his idea of teaching it was to make sure Naruto never had enough money, so that he'd always have to pinch no matter what. Somewhere in the depths of his mind lurked the fragile hope that Jiraiya wasn't such a bad man after all, that once their travels were over he'd hand Naruto a bag with all the money he'd taken—a real exercise, training, not being a dick: whatever you wished to call it, Naruto still hoped.

"So . . ." said Naruto, remembering the tatters of his pajamas. "We've got a black band and an attack. What d'you make of that?"

"She was good," said Sakura. "I could probably take her in close combat if the fire weren't there, but she used it all the time so it's a good guess that she's not only capable but also chakra efficient."

"You think Orochimaru sent her?" said Naruto.

Jiraiya hummed in his throat. "She's one of his agents, yes. Goes by the name of Adder if your description is correct. Appeared a few years ago in the Bingo Book. But I don't think she knew who you were, or she wouldn't have attacked. I'm pretty sure Orochimaru knows that you're traveling with me. We haven't been too inconspicuous on the road and he always gets a hold of such information quickly."

"She thought we're some small fish?"

"Pretty much, yes. That's my guess so far anyway. And if she's on the lookout for shinobi—who could potentially take care of the swamp—that means she's involved. Give me that, Sakura, will you?"

Sakura handed Jiraiya the black cloth.

"Mhh, I've seen that one before" said Jiraiya. "There seems to be an overflow of mercenaries as of late. With a surprising level of organization. I've heard there are two parts to them, one branch going to the mountains, the other's path is unclear."

"So we split up as well," said Sakura.

"Right," said Jiraiya. "I'll take the mountain enthusiasts. You can have the surprise box."

"That's nice of—"

Jiraiya's hand jerked up. He signed, 'Chakra. Small. Spy,' then jumped at the window, coming face to face with a monkey on the windowsill.

And while Jiraiya had a stare down with the monkey, Naruto entertained a host of questions, like: Why the hell was this monkey in their room? Could monkeys follow you? Do they have memories? All of which amounted to the hearty conclusion that he had no clue and it was probably safer for his sanity not to know.

Jiraiya took the monkey by the scruff of his neck and deposited him on the table. The monkey didn't even shriek.

He winked at Sakura though.

Jiraiya inspected the monkey. "This is odd . . ."

"You tell me," said Naruto. "We've met that guy in the jungle earlier and he's a bunch of trouble. Bugger must've followed us."

"That's not how monkeys work, Naruto," said Jiraiya. His hands lit up blue as he traced symbols around the monkey. "He's not a summon, so the much bigger question is: why does he use chakra?"

Naruto felt his memories jolt. He had sensed an attack back in the swamp. A small amount of inbound chakra, before the little guy had surprised him and stolen the map. He hadn't thought much about it, but the question was valid. Why _did_ he have chakra?

Naruto frowned at the monkey, who made a rude gesture in his direction.

"Do you think he's a spy?" he asked.

"Not necessarily," said Sakura. As she came over to take a closer look, the monkey began puffing out his chest, stroking his fur. "Every living being has a certain amount of chakra," she added. "So it's no surprise that he has, too."

"The problem is that he didn't just have it, he actively used it," said Jiraiya. "The spike was small but it _was_ there. He clung to the windowsill with it."

After careful deliberation, Naruto cocked his head and said, "He looks . . . unspy-ish. He's a trashed Ramen cup alright, but no spy, I think."

"That sums up my stance on the issue," said Jiraiya. "However, that's also exactly what a spy would want you to think, so it's a moot point. We can't chance having him here anyway." Jiraiya took the monkey once more by the scruff of his neck and put him in front of the curtain. "Sorry, buddy, but this place is a no-go zone." Then he made one-handed seals and the monkey let out a shriek. It pounded along the corridor, then down the stairs. Naruto looked out of the window as it scurried across the barely lit street.

"What'd you do?"

Jiraiya pushed the blanket closing off the door back in place. "Genjutsu. He thinks there's a group of lady monkeys just three alleys away."

" . . . and that worked?" said Sakura.

"It always does," Jiraiya said with some flourish. "Doesn't matter what species."

Sakura massaged her temples with a suffering sigh. "This night is just getting stranger."

"Just roll with it," Jiraiya said. "Best advice I ever got from my teacher. Now get some rest, you two. Tomorrow it'll all look better."

* * *

 **AN:** Read; see. If these spectacles don't fit, put them down and take up another pair. Love, Eilyfe. PS: This'll be a novella amounting to roughly 40k words; two chapters left - your typical three arc structure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Everything belongs to Kishimoto.

 **AN:** My gratitude for all the editing folks over at DLP.

* * *

 **Monkey Business**

Chapter II

* * *

Naruto stood at a large funeral pyre. The smell of burnt wood lingered about him and the others who paid their respect to the late Hokage. All they had of him now was a picture, where he looked regally at them. In each wrinkle on his brow was hidden wisdom—and the weight of a village pulling the skin down.

His face on the mountain; they had that, too.

The rest, the important part, was memory. And so forgetting became the greatest fear.

The wound was still fresh, though. When Naruto tried, he could easily recall the Hokage's voice, how his hand ruffled his hair, the laughter and sage advice, and the scrunched up face when some Chūnin dragged him before the old man because of a prank—a face drawn between hidden amusement, from one practical joker to another, and expected disapproval. Naruto still had no trouble remembering how the Hokage had taught him to read. If he went even further into the past he knew he wouldn't have to search long before he also found, dusted but alive, the memory of being read to, of hearing that crusty old voice sing a children's song popular in Konoha. The rhythm was still there. The melody, too. If he wanted to, he could probably sing it.

And still . . . he feared that he'd forget. Because those were personal things, and memories faded with time, and what happened if the memories were gone? Or if they had dulled so much that all he'd be able to recall was a concept, the abstract knowledge that he'd known this man, the Hokage, and that he'd been good to him—all the how's and why's lost.

Naruto bowed before the picture. Sticks with incense stuck out of a bowl next to it. He hated the smell. Just as the smell in Konoha's hospital covered up a bitter fight, this one made death official. One desperately fudged the evidence, the other shoved it right into your face. Broke your soul on it, too.

Around him, people sniffled into their tissues, or kept looking ahead with hard, controlled faces, or cried. So many of them, to all of whom this man with the giant liver-spots and hairs on them had been a father, or something close to that.

Naruto stepped away. He had been the last. They would take the urn with the ashes now and bury it wherever Hokages were buried. The old man had insisted on being burned. Whatever the reasons, they must have been well thought out.

Naruto walked home amidst a crowd of mourners—yet always a few steps removed. Each step accompanied by the destruction of Orochimaru's invasion, he thought that perhaps forgetting wasn't the greatest fear after all. It seemed hard to forget all this. Impossible even.

The pit in his stomach was something else.

What could he have done to change what happened? He thought of all the ways he should have been stronger, faster, more able, to save what was dearest to him. He resented the Bijū in his gut. It had made the Hokage's second term necessary. And yet he also asked himself why he hadn't learned to use it better, to make it a weapon? Would the old man have died that way?

The answer was so close he could taste it. One more step down that road amidst the sniveling crowd and he'd hold it in his hands.

But whenever Naruto felt himself in reach . . .

He woke up, his pulse pounding too quickly, his hands clammy.

The sun shone through the blinds, pasting a riffled motif on the floor. Sakura sat at the table, reading.

"You're up? Good," she said, noticing him sitting up in the bed. She smiled at him. "The mercenaries will move out in half an hour, so you've still got some time. I got fresh bread from the market and some butter if you want."

"Thanks . . . " he said, still not fully there. He was grasping at his dream, but the more he reached, the more it faded away—until all he was left with was a vague feeling of shame, the face of the old man, and no idea how to connect the two while knowing they somehow belonged together.

* * *

They lay on a roof in Seho, farthest village away from Kinzoku, closest to the swamp. Scattered all throughout the village: armored mercenaries making the appearance of searching for something.

The search had taken them six hours so far and nothing of note had happened yet.

"I'm hungry," said Naruto.

"We're on a mission," said Sakura.

"No reason to starve."

She threw him an annoyed look. "We're not leaving post on a mission, Naruto. That's unprofessional."

"They're not doin' anything!"

The shout echoed. They pulled their heads back so they weren't visible from the streets. Naruto held up his hands. With a lowered voice he said, "It's not that I don't understand what'cha mean, Sakura. But they're not movin' at all. Probably won't either in the ten minutes it'll take to get some food."

Sakura made ready to protest, but her stomach chose that moment for a hideous betrayal.

Naruto grinned at her. "If they didn't hear my shout, they'll definitely have heard _that_. Nice growl there, tiger."

"Shut up . . ."

"I'll get us something, just you wait."

"Naruto, wait, that's—"

But he was already gone before she could say no. He swung himself down into an alley, put up his best Henge, and went for the next joint that sold food. There was no Ramen place in this village—that much he'd checked already. It was actually the first thing he always checked when entering any place; Jiraiya called it The Best Situational Awareness Utilized For The Silliest Purpose.

Chicken would be alright though. He just needed some time to stretch his legs. To move around. Which was also the reason he didn't use a clone for this task.

Observations made you yawn more often than they brought results. It was much better to throw some stones and see if that created ripples than to wait for ripples happening on their own. But he seemed pretty much alone with that. Being inconspicuous was a tedious thing that everyone took very seriously.

And he had to admit that Sakura, lovely as she was, annoyed him with her rules. Her damn stomach growled. It was as if she put away human nature for the duration of a mission. She hadn't been that way before. Or at least not to that degree.

Fifteen minutes later he returned to the roof with two cartons of chicken and rice and they began to eat.

Naruto enjoyed it for all it was worth, if only to provide a counterbalance.

"We shouldn't be doing this . . ." said Sakura.

"Look, Sakura, there's nothing they'll do, is there? They've done nothing so far but stand around."

"We should be finding out _what_ they're doing . . ."

"We tried, and all that got us was 'we're on the lookout for the swamp maker.' And that they definitely aren't, because we know they're _part_ of the swamp maker, so whatever the hell they're doing here, 's not chasin' anybody. So for all _I_ know it's just standing around like silly ducks."

"They've got to have a purpose though," said Sakura. She gave up her reluctant eating and adopted a style more suited to someone whose stomach made the noise of a starved tigress about to feast.

Naruto shrugged. "They don't show nothing so far," he said around a piece of chicken. "Maybe it's not the best place to do watching, this roof."

Sakura looked confused. "It is the best vantage point in the village, equidistant to the village borders on each side. If something happens we'll know immediately." She nodded confidently. "It's the most reasonable spot to see if something goes on."

"Equi-what?" What the hell had Grandma Tsunade and those finicky bastards at the hospital done with her? He made a mental note to get a hold of that issue later. Couldn't let her become dry like that, like some old prune.

"It means being the same distance away each side. It's really the most appropriate spot according to my calculations. We'll see whatever happens perfectly."

"'s not the seeing I'm talkin' about, Sakura. We've been seein' for hours, just there's nothing to see here. What we need is to get on the ground. 'Finger to the pulse' is what the old pervert always says."

"Pulse?"

"People. They talk and we talk and maybe they'll let something slip and then we're a whole deal farther down that road."

Sakura put away the empty cup. Her fingernails seemed interesting to her all of a sudden.

"I'm not sure . . . " she said.

Naruto cocked his head, taking her in, suddenly all the professionalism gone, replaced instead by a load of shyness and finger-staring. Cute in its own way but throwing up a lot of questions.

"You alright, Sakura? Why're you not sure?"

"I . . ." She trailed off, then looked up. Cheeks red, she ground out, "I'm not good with improvising. There." She crossed her arms. "I can talk well if I can stay as myself but if I have to play someone else or do infiltration work . . . I'm just not good at that. It's always a blunder and I'm nervous, and my thoughts get jumbled and . . ."

"Easy there," said Naruto.

The red across Sakura's cheeks flared up harder. "I . . . ruined missions before with this. My track record isn't too good."

Naruto nodded, leaning toward her.

Finally her awkward keeping to textbook rules made sense. Failed missions rarely did any good for a shinobi's confidence. The aftermath of the Valley of the End had made that clear to him. And if she'd bungled stuff like this before, chances were she'd overcompensate and try her hardest not to again, and that'd just make her tense and she'd screw up all over again.

He understood it, better than she likely thought he did.

"I don't think that's too important," he said after a moment. "So you're no good at talkin' to people you've got to press for information? Big deal. You're a combat medic anyway. The way I see it, what you need to be good at is clubbing people and patchin' them up." A quick, brutal shiver shot down his spine. "You've no trouble in either of those, Sakura. Believe me."

She looked up. Hopeful but still uncertain, as if she couldn't quite find it in herself to trust that not being perfect didn't make her a bad shinobi.

"But it's such an essential quality," she said. "Iruka always told us information is key. Ibiki, too!"

Naruto shrugged. "They never said you've got to be the one to get the information. Can you imagine Caterpillar Brows going about squeezin' people subtle, like? No way." Naruto dusted off his shoulder, then leaped to his feet. "It's teams in Konoha for a reason, Sakura, and we're the best damn team there is, so it's all 'bout syne—synagery. Us workin' together is what I want to say. So you'll keep on the lookout up here and I'll go down and get some intel, and then we find out what's what. And if I get busted hard when we're slamming fists with that kunoichi again, then I need you to patch me up, cause that's somethin' _I_ can't do."

"Thanks, Naruto," she said. As her lips moved into a grateful smile, Naruto felt a funny twitching in his stomach and mentally patted his shoulder for a job well done.

He made his way to the streets below, thinking that women really had silly concerns sometimes. As if he'd give one whit if she couldn't talk a smooth game to some mercenary. Besides, if she really needed information, she could crush a toe or two and then go on asking questions. Not many people in the world who would say no to such a convincing method.

* * *

 _She_ had been in the middle of a talk with one of the more loose-lipped mercenaries about prostitution—of which _she_ knew a whole deal more than she should, on account of Jiraiya's sheer presence—and booze, when the man uttered the sentence, "It ought to happen soon, babe. Better get to yer hut or what have you and hide yer family." The mercenary took a another swig. Sake spilled into his beard. "And save yerself, of course," he added with a laugh. "If yer still 'round I'll find ye and then we can continue, eh. Yer by far the most chilled of them damsels in this hovelin' gathering of huts."

She held a manicured hand to her mouth. Hair cascaded down her back like an avalanche of blond seduction, each strand positioned by long practiced habit to ensure the most alluring vision no matter the angle. He—pardon— _She_ had met few men who'd been able to say no to a conversation with her.

"What are you talking about?" she said, putting a tremble into her voice. "It's a nice a day, why'd I need to hide, honey? And you _know_ I'm living on my own. There's really no one else."

The mercenary's eyes lit up. "I will _definitely_ find yer later . . . but yer've got to go now."

She snuggled up to him, ignoring the boozy breath. "You sure?" she breathed, tracing circles on his tattooed biceps.

He looked conflicted. In fact, she hadn't ever seen such a conflicted look since the last time Chōji had to choose between two meals because his allowance ran out. Was that pride she felt? Oh yes, it was.

With a look of supreme effort, the man pried her away, gently as you please, and said, "Really sorry, babe. But it'll have ta wait. I'll find yer though. Promise. Now"—he mustered a stern expression—"yer better get inside. The animals will come soon, and yer ought ta be far'way from them beasts."

A last try. Some more information to wheedle out.

She put on her best come-hither look. "The only animals I see is we two, honey. And I assure you, given some privacy we can make any beast blush."

Wrong move.

Instead of responding, the mercenary shoved her into an alley and pressed his lips on her face. The taste of garlic, onions and booze gave her a moment of sheer panic. Then the rough lips were gone, and the mercenary left her alone in the alley.

The Henge puffed away. She became He.

And _he_ spat on the ground. Once, twice. When all the saliva was gone, he still tried for a third time. "Bastard used tongue on me! Disgusting! I'll kill that son of a bitch!" All rational that he had provoked it weighed nothing against that breath and sensation, and the feeling of murder in his gut.

In moments like this the Kyuubi actually had the highest chance of escape.

Naruto created a clone. A seal later it sprouted water into his mouth and he gargled.

"Again!"

After the third time he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

Animals. What the heck did that even mean? A bunch of birds carpet bombing the village?

He glanced at the sky with suspicion. He knew the world liked such moments to screw with people. The moment you dismissed the bird theory, a sole specimen was on its way to get, literally, the drop on you.

No bird though. Better to meet up with Sa—

A cry from the outskirts of the village. High-pitched. Naruto narrowed his eyes. Children liked to wail, but that hadn't been the normal kind of outburst. Usually those amounted to, 'I want this and am not getting it.' This one though had the effect of, 'Dear God, Why did Mama and Papa push me toward the lion?'

He shot off to the nearest roof. And, upon turning his head to find Sakura, crashed into the hairy chest of a giant gorilla.

He staggered back, blinking. The gorilla, red eyes rimmed with blue circles, rampaged forward with a guttural grunt. Naruto blocked a wild fist and felt firsthand that the gorilla used chakra to enhance its punches.

"Big beasty," he said, wincing as the anvil-like fist hammered against his block again. "But not big enough for this, are you?" Naruto juked to the side, took the arm, leveraged the weight on his hip, and threw the gorilla with a bump down into the street. It landed with a thump and an uprising of dust around it.

"There's another one of them," he heard a rough voice from below.

"Kill it."

"Something's strange," said the voice again. "It . . . it didn't jump, sarge. Just . . . fell? Can gorillas fall?"

"Maybe it tripped?" said a third voice.

"I don't give no rat's ass if that beast tripped or fell or flew, you dipshits. Cut off the head, put a spear through it, and be done with that thing. There's more of them coming."

Naruto left them and met up with Sakura. Together they observed the mercenaries forget their fiscal differences and band together in order to defend Seho's population from aggressive and severely over-sized animals.

Still no birds. Though the twenty foot long snake winding itself through the village was more than enough. As was the house-sized crocodile that tore through stalls with its jaws, crunching on the wooden boards like they were toothpicks.

"Should we help them?" asked Sakura.

Naruto shook his head. "It's their work, let 'em finish this up themselves."

"We should keep an eye on the villagers."

"Right. If one of them's in the way of a beast, we'll save 'em. All sneaky, like."

* * *

The fracas lasted for another hour. Naruto and Sakura didn't intervene beyond smuggling a crying baby out of the way of a four thousand pound crocodile. What they observed afterwards was chaos and confusion among the villagers, who turned to the mercenaries that had gathered in the middle of the village square.

"I . . . I don't know what to say," said the village elder, looking helplessly about. None of the wooden shacks used by merchants around the square had survived. Tarpaulins lay strewn across the floor, mud bricks between them; here and there a pile of splinters and the occasional puddle of blood.

The place smelled muddy and of swamp and sweat. One house, solid stone, had giant scratch marks from one corner to another.

"It's alright," said one of the mercenaries. He wore a good set of armor; two swords hung at his hip. "Thank God that we've been around for a while to find out who made that swamp. I can't imagine what would've happened hadn't we been here."

The elder twisted the sleeves of his robe. "Yes . . . Yes indeed. I can't either"—He looked about, stumped by the circumstances—"I . . . thank you, good sirs. We don't have much in terms of payment, but . . . but Seho is known for its crabs! And all other kinds of seafood!" Amidst the confusion, a thread of pride entered the man's voice, shining out through his eyes also. He used that thread like a lifeline, clinging to it. "If you wish, good sirs, please stay the night and enjoy what we have to offer. We can give you a place to sleep and food, and what else you might need we can arrange, surely."

"That is very kind of you," said the mercenary. "We will take you up on your generous offer. I cannot speak for all of my fellow brothers in arms, but I think that, as long as this crisis continues, some of them would not object to standing guard."

The elder stepped forward, unbelieving, as if seeing a mirage. Which Naruto thought he was actually seeing as well, because altruistic mercenaries was such an oxymoron you couldn't just solve an equation like that.

He shared a skeptical look with Sakura.

"Really?" said the elder. Then he cleared his throat. "We would be grateful if you were to help us out in such dire times."

The mercenary nodded, letting his gaze swivel through the crowd of civilians, lingering longer on the children. "It's not exactly the way we usually operate," he said, making a rueful gesture, "but you've got a lot of kids around here, and picturing what might happen to them . . . listen, I know at least some of the guys behind me personally, and even if we're mercenaries, we're still just as human as everyone else. If you'd continue to give them food and board I'm sure they could be convinced to stay free of any other charge."

Then he put up a mercantile and sharp grin that verged on being overstretched. "Only as long as the problem with the swamp isn't resolved, of course. Afterwards, if you still want our services you ought to pay. Can't work for free forever. A man's got to live, and a mercenary not making money doesn't stay one for long."

The elder laughed throatily. "Of course, good sir. All in nature's course, isn't it?" He grew solemn. "Thank you," he said. "I know how good a deal this is, and in the name of the village you have my gratitude."

The exchange ended and the mercenary leader went with the elder to talk to some of the other soldiers, convincing them to stay. One young man close by, on whose face a frown was building up, made to speak with the elder. Before he reached him though, a familiar mercenary, likely still having the breath of a dying skunk, put a hand on his shoulder and led him away, talking quietly.

Naruto scratched his cheek, letting all this fly around in his mind.

"Don't think we're goin' to get much more than this," he said.

" _That_ was more than enough for one day," said Sakura.

"Tired?"

She shook her head. "More confused than anything."

"You believe what he said?"

"Not a word," said Sakura with pinched lips and a mightily displeased expression.

"Thought so," said Naruto. "Let's hike back. The old pervert's gonna wanna know 'bout this."

* * *

The job of an unwilling herb hunter was, most of all, boring, repetitive, filled with crouching, the tedious chirping of birds, the annoying buzz of insects, the feeling of worms crawling between your toes, the experience of finding roots in your way and living in damp areas, and lastly, of a continuous expenditure of chakra for an essentially useless purpose.

Uchiha Sasuke swatted a mosquito to death, crouched, and plucked a mushroom with the texture of a soggy biscuit from between two roots. Hearing two more mosquitos buzz closer, he raised his eyes to them. The wheels got an extra spin. One might call it a bit of deserved extra meanness. In any case, the mosquitos fell dumbly to the ground, buzzing in a circle before hitting a puddle and drowning.

Satisfied, Sasuke put the mushrooms into a zip bag in his hand.

Some people found the practice of mushroom gathering serene. They enjoyed it and, if they belonged to an especially joyous bunch, were always up for singing a song. Sasuke did not belong to that group.

He spied the next mushroom. It was red and had little black dots. To the usual observer it was invisible; a mushroom evolved to utilize its measly chakra for an almost impenetrable Genjutsu. One of incredible complexity, which really was the strangest thing. A stroke of genius in evolutionary terms, just that evolution held no candle to Uchiha Sasuke. Still, even though his Sharingan _could_ break through the illusion, the task gave him a terrible headache. He felt how his prized Sharingan had to actually work—work!—to accustom itself to every new mushroom, as if the things changed their illusionary makeup twice within a second, with no regard for continuity, all to spite him.

Another mushroom entered the zip bag involuntarily, its biological defenses lying shattered and broken before him, a sieged wall crumbling to dust under the onslaught of his eyes, a shield pierced by the—

Sasuke shut the bag with an audible _zip_. That was more than enough for one evening, enough to satisfy Orochimaru's demand in any case. He would bring the mushrooms back to his hideout, then train, and . . . well, train again. And if Orochimaru hadn't promised him tips for a new technique, a development for his lightning affinity that could call down heaven itself to smite his brother, he'd be long gone by now.

Sasuke fastened the bag to his belt, then shunshin'd onto the next best tree and sped to his hideout.

The cave offered enough room to train in peace, and at night the droplets of water falling from the stalactites onto the ground could be soothing.

He boiled himself water for tea. He would take a short moment of rest before beginning his training, which begged another question, an ongoing project of his: How to relax when you are not training? It was surprisingly difficult. But Kabuto had been clear that overtraining could have damaging consequences for his chakra circulatory system. He had given Sasuke a special tour through the experiment wards two years back. There, all the failed experiments slumbered that Orochimaru had produced by trying to create a shinobi capable of beneficial overtraining.

Not a pretty sight.

Still, Sasuke had disregarded it, of course. Until, a few months back, Orochimaru had noticed him overtax his body. The Snake Sannin had given him the same tour as Kabuto, then. Just that having Orochimaru as a tour guide was infinitely worse. To prove his credentials, Orochimaru had ended the journey through his facility by conducting a live-experiment on a lesser Genin, who trained herself to death because she was so devoted to him.

Hence the problem of finding something to do. Sasuke's eyes wandered to a bag near his bedroll. Books. It had been risky, of course, to buy them in Kinzoku while being a wanted criminal. It had been one of those rare impulse buys. Entering the store he already regretted it, but by then it was too late anyway so he just grabbed the next best books without looking, put them in his bag, and left without paying.

He shouldn't have done that, provoking being seen like that. It was exactly this kind of stuff that called shinobi onto a scene. He could just imagine how Naruto and Sakura would react if they'd found out about him. Konoha was the last thing he could use right now. The job was tedious enough already.

Sasuke pulled the bag to him and opened it. He might as well get a good look at what he stole.

The first was a picture book. _The Adventures of Schmucky and Ducky—A Beautiful Friendship between Pig and Duck._

He incinerated that one on the spot.

The second book read: _How to Convince your Partner in Twenty Easy Steps to—_

Sasuke blew the growing pile of ash away, not wanting to risk his cave growing untidy.

With a sense of inevitable futility he reached for the last book in the bag. The cover was a bright green. Golden letters on it read: _Icha Icha – Paradise of Delight: There Is Never 'Too Many Women'._

The book slipped out of his grip and fell to the ground. Right, of course he had picked trash like this. The one time he actually wanted to do something apart from training, fate saw it fit to mock him.

He glanced at the book. Trash. Yes. But trash read by a surprising amount of strong shinobi.

Not that he believed their success had anything to do with the book.

But, really, you could never be sure. And if men like the Hokage, Kakashi and Jiraiya of the Sannin read or even wrote it, _perhaps_ . . .

No. Trash.

The cover grinned at him.

Then he heard steps outside the cave and, almost happy that the decision had been taken from him, he kicked the book into a dark corner.

Shortly after, Adder dragged herself into this part of the cave. She held her sides and wheezed. Even if he couldn't smell any fresh blood, she looked weak enough to fall down any second.

"I—" She coughed, then gathered herself into an upright posture, which crumbled the next second. "There is trouble, Sasuke-sama."

"Report."

"I have encountered hostiles. They were . . . too strong for me alone."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. When Orochimaru said that the one he chose could sufficiently hold her own that usually meant something. Perhaps a larger group of enemies? That would necessitate his involvement.

"How many?"

She stared at her feet. A bad feeling grew in his stomach at the sight. "Two," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-sama, but they were—"

He held up his hand.

Two? Elite Chūnin at least, then. Possibly Jōnin.

"When?" he asked.

"Last night."

"And you're only coming to me with this now?"

She winced. "I was injured," she said quietly. "I wouldn't have made it to you without dying on the way. I had to get to my hideout and—"

"Weak," he said. "Any village affiliation?" If one of the Five had taken to investigating this swamp confrontation was inevitable.

"None that I could see. They, well, they were wearing sleeping clothes since I attacked them at night."

He narrowed his eyes. "You attacked them?"

"I thought I would manage, they were only two. And Orochimaru-sama said that—"

"It doesn't matter what he said," said Sasuke slowly. "You should have observed them further."

"But . . . they looked young, inexperienced."

Sasuke gave her an indifferent look, and she averted her eyes. As if age had anything to do with skill. Itachi had . . . He shook his head. Not now. First he'd have to deal with this new problem.

"I'll gather more information on them come morning," he said. "How did they look?"

She brightened a bit, as if finally having found some way to be useful. "You'll find them easily, Sasuke-sama. They _do_ stick out. One is completely blond, with spiky hair and whiskers; and the other has pink hair. They're a good combat unit but I don't think they're too good at noticing being observed. Too little subtlety."

Sasuke blinked. Then the feeling in his stomach solidified into a knot, each strand tied together by supreme annoyance and something else, something unidentifiable, unnamable, something he thought he'd killed a long while ago, two years to be precise.

They were here?

 _Why?_

Not saying a word he walked over to his bedroll, picked up his sword, and fastened it to his belt. Then he rushed out of the cave without sparing Adder another look.

* * *

In Kinzoku, Jiraiya sat cross-legged on the floor of their room, pipe hanging loosely from his lips, a pair of glasses having slid down the bridge of his nose as he surveyed a piece of paper. Around him, many more pages lay scattered. Half a bottle of ink had been spilled across the tatami mats; ink dribbled from the table; the bottle, half-empty, lay haphazardly on the table, upturned, a black tower toppled to the ground by some unknown force. The room smelled of sake; a box of tissues stood close by. Two pieces of chocolate peeked out of tinfoil.

"Impressive," said Naruto, letting his gaze swivel through the chaos.

Sakura stood open-mouthed next to him. "What—"

"The process, my dear," said Jiraiya, sagely. He didn't avert his bespectacled eyes from the page in his hand. Then, with a satisfied hum, he slammed the page down, took a brush from behind his ear, half of which was smeared with black, dipped it into the puddle of ink on the floor, and wrote a last word on the page.

"I repeat," said Sakura, as if resetting the discussion would make things clearer. "What?"

"Artistic expression can be a bit messy at times," said Jiraiya. "A masterpiece sometimes needs . . . well, chaos, to really thrive. And my word, I can't remember the last time I've managed to get so many good things onto one page."

Naruto went over to the box of tissues. In moments like these he'd love to have a fire affinity.

"Found no women today?" he said, kicking the box into the farthest corner.

Jiraiya looked affronted. "I didn't go looking. Today was just my art and me."

"Liar," said Naruto. "As if that's . . . why am I even bothering?"

"It's . . . " Sakura trailed off. "It's for your writing? All this?" Then she grew rigid, as if memory had finally dragged the kind of literature Jiraiya wrote into the floodlight of awareness. Her eyes grew cold.

"In this room?" she asked, glaring at the tissues, then directing her fury at the culprit.

Jiraiya took off the glasses and put them on the table. "I assure you, I have no idea what you mean. I worked on my book."

 _That won't work_ , thought Naruto. Not with Sakura at least.

"Disgusting," said Sakura, winding up. "Absolutely—"

"Haruno Sakura!" Jiraiya boomed.

Sakura snapped to attention, unwilling, but even Naruto felt the instinct to salute at such a tone.

"I will not have you question my recreational activities," Jiraiya went on. "Report your findings, Chūnin."

Experience enabled Naruto to snap out of the spell but Sakura had spent little time with Jiraiya so far. Naruto wouldn't be surprised if a large part of her still held tight to the way legends described him. Aside from Tsunade herself you likely couldn't find a higher authority that appealed so much to her authority-oriented mind.

All mistakes forgotten, Sakura began reporting what had happened in Seho. Professionalism personified, voice carefully modulated, she stood straight like an oak, her words precise. A textbook made flesh.

The more she talked, the more Jiraiya eased back into a relaxed position. Then he smuggled a few hand signs past her toward Naruto, which amounted to: Pay Attention, Boy. That's How You Do It.

Naruto rolled his eyes. Layers upon layers. Were Sakura, despite all cautiousness, to notice the hand signs, Jiraiya could still say that he referred to the act of reporting itself.

Naruto signed back: Not So Brave With Grandma Tsunade.

If you could sign ellipses he'd have added them for good measure.

The crazy thing was that Naruto knew Jiraiya listened while signing, that he paid minute attention to Sakura's report, that somewhere in that demented mind the next passage of his novel was being written at the same time as the whole situation on Danube Island was being processed.

Ultimately, that were the Sannin for you: human ability surpassed in the places you least expected it.

As Sakura finished her report, Jiraiya ended his side-conversation with Naruto.

"That's about what I expected," he said. "I followed the mercenaries up to the mountains. They had some frisky animals, too. But you know what really stood out? They had surprised miners. And the last time I checked, Danube had no mines. Of course, the mercenaries were just in time to help. Always so reliable, those guys."

"Not really all that inconspicuous, is it?" said Sakura. "I would have expected a scheme by Orochimaru to be more . . . elaborate? The invasion during the exams was much more sophisticated."

Jiraiya answered but Naruto was deaf to his reply. He had squeezed his eyes shut at the word invasion. Pictures flickered through his mind, the image of a pyre, a photo with a blurred out person, zigzagging emotions too fast to understand that were gone as quickly as they came.

Thinking about Jiji wouldn't do him any good now. That was long ago. Two years in which he'd grown out of tears and rotten moods that always ambushed him when he least expected them.

None of that mattered now. They had a swamp to investigate. Sasuke was close too, and these days animals spent their time brutalizing villages. More than enough to keep you occupied in any case.

Naruto opened his eyes again.

" . . . you should go," said Jiraiya. His tone was insistent.

"But we're on a mission!" said Sakura. "Now that we know there's real trouble, we can't just—"

"I say it's okay, so it's okay."

Naruto shook off the remembrance of the late Hokage. "What's he tryin' to make you do?" he asked.

"Weren't you listening?" asked Sakura.

"Sorry, mind's been wandering."

"He wants us to go to the festival," she said, " _while_ we're on a mission."

That wiped the bad mood away in an instant. Naruto wheeled to Jiraiya. "Really? I didn't think you'd remember!"

Jiraiya scoffed. "So that's what you think of me, is it? I promised the next festival we come by. Of course I hold my word!" He flipped open a fan and jumped to his feet, already halfway through his introductory pose. "Nothing else from Jiraiya of the Sannin, Most Suave—"

"Is it really okay during a mission?"

"It is," said Jiraiya. Then, to add weight to his words, he went on, "I'm a Sannin," as if that alone gave him all the credibility he could ever need.

And Sakura was probably the only person he knew who'd take that at face value. And he knew that Jiraiya knew, which meant he'd hear that sentence a lot more often—precisely whenever Jiraiya tried to convince her to do something that went against her rigid views.

"Okay . . . " said Sakura. She was still not fully convinced, but she seemed to warm up to the idea. And when Naruto noticed her glancing at her backpack, as if to check if she had the necessary clothes, then her eyes flitting in a strange kind of panic, because obviously she didn't, he knew that things would be fine that night.

Naruto blinked. Clothes. Right. Mechanically his head turned to his own backpack. Did _he_ have something to wear? Something proper? He glanced at Sakura. Two years ago his training outfit would've been enough, but things changed. He wasn't quite sure how, but they _had_ changed, that much he knew.

Before he could lose himself to this strange panic though, Jiraiya cleared his throat.

With a knowing grin, he held up two scrolls: one orange, the other pink.

"Here you go, you two," he said, pushing the scrolls into their hands. "Now _you_ make sure to have enough fun for three people while _I_ make sure nothing happens. And don't you come back too soon. Staying all cooped up is not good for young people. You're supposed to do wild stuff. Get smashed, have fun, and all that jazz."

The barely suppressed giggle really wasn't appropriate.

Sakura frowned, but surprisingly said nothing. Neither about the allusion to their 'frolicking' as Jiraiya would call it—what a damn strange word—nor to the drinking part. But Naruto was glad for small favors. They didn't come about often in his life.

* * *

"How did he get my measurements?"

A healthy dose of confusion accompanied Sakura's question. Naruto, feeling strangely electrified in his chest, chose not to consider the question too deeply himself. He had an inkling anyway, just not the inclination to follow up on it.

"No clue," he said. Then, having practiced the sentence in his mind for five minutes now, went on to his bravest adventure yet. "You're looking good."

Jackpot. No stammer. He felt a bit hot around the nose but that was fine. He might have looked at his feet if he were shier, but he found looking at Sakura far more interesting. The white kimono, the rose petal motif, and the girl inside won out big time over any embarrassment.

She beamed at him. "You too," she said, before turning round and busying herself with her purse.

Naruto went over to the mirror that hung at the wall, engaging in the soothing practice of mentally talking to his whiskers, which he called by the numbers one to six. He had a secret bet with himself that he'd be Hokage before he ran out of whiskers to count faces on the mountain with—which left him with one to go. He stared at his whiskers, thinking, _Boy, this'll be somethin'. Don't you screw this up, Uzumaki. You've got a good night and Sakura and a festival and—_

"I'm ready," Sakura called.

"Comin'," said Naruto.

They shared a smile, then went down the stairs of the inn. There they met Jiraiya, who sat at the counter with the innkeep, playing cards and chugging cups. Naruto waved at him, then held the door open for Sakura and went outside.

* * *

Festivals were supposed to be fun. They had food and booze, music and entertainment. You could play games and chat, and there were large bonfires with dancing people, booze again, and for good measure, booze a third time. Taking part in a good festival you forgot all about the clock and just partied it up until sunrise. Time stopped mattering.

Sadly, time did not stop mattering for Naruto; it just changed its system. Instead of hours, he measured time in squids now. To be precise, squids on sticks.

The fact of the matter was that Kinzoku's Yearly Festival had needed only two squids on sticks that he ate before it turned sour—and he was a fast eater.

The good part: it had nothing to do with Sakura, or him fumbling it with her.

The bad part: while the crier from the stall nearby shouted for more people to challenge Bono, Strongest Arm Wrestler Alive, Naruto had his nose full with the obscene stench of another stall owner who'd taken a bath in garlic, his apron full of grease spots.

"That's not your monkey!" Naruto shouted, his patience—which at the best of times was threadbare—running out.

"It's yours then?" the man said. "I'd like to see some paperwork, boy."

Having nothing like that, Naruto looked at the stall, feeling frustration well up. The stall was a large miniature arena, encased with glass. In the arena, a familiar monkey currently held his own against a duo of scorpions, wearing a strange leather helmet and flailing around with a wooden sword. Strangest of all, his movements looked calculated. Panicked but somewhat planned.

As one scorpion sidled up, stinger raised, the monkey sallied forward. He swung the wooden sword in a wide arc, scaring the poisonous beast off, then used crude footwork to back off again.

"I don't have papers," Naruto ground out.

"Then stop pestering me," the owner said, before turning around and shouting, "Come here, now! Watch this most intelligent fighter fare against the devilments of Kusa! Nowhere else will you find such a monumental battle as this! Come now! Visit and be delighted! The most cunning monkey you'll ever witness awaits!"

Agitated by the voice, the monkey looked sideways. When it spied Naruto a screech left its mouth with such force, even Bono The Arm Wrestler twitched.

At that moment, a group of mercenaries who had played rock-paper-scissor to find out who'd wrestle Bono looked over to the stall.

The hairiest of the bunch came over. His chest was broad like a doorframe, each hair fighting its way through chainmail and leather armor.

"Problems here, chief?" he said, glaring at Naruto. His companions followed, though they kept their eyes glued to Sakura.

The stall owner, with the assurance of someone who knew the bigger bully was on his side, puffed up his chest. "Boy here said it's not my monkey, making a fuss and all and scaring away me customers."

"That true?" said the mercenary.

 _Patience_ , thought Naruto. _They've no idea, Uzumaki, so don't you go and clobber them now. Just explain it to them in a nice and polite way; Sakura is watching._

"I've seen that monkey before and—"

The monkey screeched again, and the mercenary slugged drunkenly against the glass arena.

"Silent! Ruddy thing . . . "

In the eyes of the monkey, Naruto saw desperation. The monkey had by now clubbed the scorpions to death but the owner held another cage ready, filled with the hisses of a bunch of snakes.

That did it. Blast it all to hell, but there was a limit to patience and staying low.

A red point of anger in his chest, Naruto shot the mercenaries and the stall owner a glare. He was about to roll up his kimono sleeves, when Sakura took his arm.

"He's just a bit drunk, gentlemen," she said, smiling at the men. "Please excuse us, he needs sobering up."

The hairy mercenary let out a guffaw. "Better get the little shite under control, missy. People who can't hold their liquor have no business drinkin'!"

"Of course, I'll tell him," she said, giving Naruto a clear message through her eyes that she would murder him if he made a scene.

"And if you're bored with such a lout, why not come back'n find us? Better company for sure."

"For sure," said Sakura, bowing lightly. "I'll consider it."

Then she dragged Naruto around a fence and into an alley.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she said, poking a finger into his chest.

Naruto glared at the wall. If he had the ability to glare through it, his gaze would've speared some gullets on the other side of the house.

"You don't need to glare at the wall like that," said Sakura. "Calm down, Naruto. It's over now. I can't believe you almost blew our cover like this!"

Naruto frowned. "They deserve a good beatin'," he said. "Doing stuff like that and betting on it. I would've messed them up."

Then he remembered the reason for his anger in the first place. His eyes widened. He was almost around the corner when Sakura pulled him back with some effort.

"What now?" she grunted, dragging him back into the alley.

"Didn't you notice? That monkey's got to fight some snake next, I heard it. That thing'll kill him for sure! We got to help!"

At which point Sakura rolled her eyes and pinned him in place with a stare that pretty much amounted to: Are you an idiot or what?

An uncomfortable expression that she gave voice to a second later. "You're a shinobi, Naruto. Are you telling me the only way you can save that monkey is by busting their jaws?"

It took about five seconds to understand. Then he felt his ears heat up.

Right. There were, perhaps, for the not-immediately-violence-inclined other options to solve problems.

"Got it," he said, scratching the back of his neck, feeling his cheeks burns.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Then go and save him, or he'll die for real. I'll wait here for you."

"Will do," he said.

"And don't go about breaking jaws, please."

Naruto didn't comment. At that point in time he felt it safer to just get the monkey away from his current company and then forget this whole episode.

* * *

A minute later he was back in the alley, the monkey clinging to his shoulder as if he had found a long-lost family member. This time Naruto had planned ahead. In the cage currently fought a monkey-clone with the brawling knowledge of a full-blood shinobi. To top it off, he had left some henged clones nearby who'd place some bets and fleece that damn owner.

He rubbed his hands. Better odds you got in no other cage fight.

Naruto pried the overly thankful monkey from his shoulder. "'s all good now, boy. Settle down."

The monkey looked around anxiously. For a second he stopped his panic to appreciate Sakura's kimono, then he resumed with flitting eyes to look for danger.

Naruto crouched so they were on eye level. "They won't do anything to you now."

In that moment, despite their earlier struggles against each other, a bond of kinship formed. All his life Naruto knew people had either feared and despised him, or—even worse—they had regarded him with scientific curiosity, like you'd regard a particular well-shined sword. Seeing how those old crones who'd always advised Jiji had observed him felt way worse than the actual fear he met from the villagers. Cruel as it was, he could understand the fear. It was silly and he'd rather they not run away screaming about demons in their minds, but he could understand it. He feared lots of things himself that weren't any dangerous. Ghosts being one of them.

And the monkey? That fellow had been objectified just the same then, kitted out with armor and weapons to turn a good profit.

Sakura saw the intense gaze between them and snorted. "I'll leave you two to it," she said, walking over to a barrel of rainwater and checking out her face, adjusting her hair, and so on—all the strange things women do from time to time.

Naruto nodded absentmindedly. Having found kinship, he reached out his fist. Tentatively, the monkey bumped his own against it.

"I'm Naruto."

Naruto took a stick and wrote his name in the dirt.

The monkey looked first at him, then at the name. He took the stick and scrawled symbols into the earth as well.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Fip, eh? Good name." After a few more seconds of silence, Naruto rose from his crouch. "That's that. Keep calm and don't let 'em catch you again, 'kay?"

Fip made a questioning noise.

"Nah, you can't come with me, boy."

Fip jumped in place twice.

Naruto sighed, then gestured to his shoulder. Fip followed it up and leaned in. Naruto whispered, "Listen, I don't know how much you actually understand, but I want to have a good time with Sakura"—he subtly nodded at her back—"and I can't do that with you in the mix. So be a pal and give me some space, will you?"

A moment long Naruto feared that old resentments would bubble up. Fip swayed on his shoulder, head swinging from Naruto to Sakura and back. Then, as if heaving a monumental sigh, Fip uttered a sad noise, nodded, and climbed down along the back to the ground.

"Oook?"

"I'm sure we'll see each other again," said Naruto. "Come find me if you've got the time, Fip."

"Oook."

* * *

After Fip left them, Naruto was alone with Sakura again. This time though, there was some awkwardness to it. They stood in the dark alley, and Naruto couldn't help but think this evening went entirely different than he'd planned.

"So . . . want to go back to the festival?" Naruto asked, trying to shove away the silence.

Sakura looked undecided. "Not really," she said. "I don't like all those mercenaries around me."

Silence settled on them again.

Naruto tapped his foot. _Do something_ , he thought. _Say something_. _Just get this silence over with!_

His mouth opened—all checks and balances of the planning-ahead part of his mind masterfully circumvented. "We could get hammered."

The syllable – _ed_ barely left his lips when he already winced. Not a good idea with Sakura. She was so damn by the book, convincing her to get sloshed would—

"You think that'd be alright?"

Naruto's eyes widened. A trick? A trap? Some womanly game of testing boundaries? Any of those things Jiraiya talked about now and then? But Sakura, biting her lip, made the genuine impression of warring with herself about the idea.

How—

Naruto's mind screeched to a halt. Then it resumed, working its way towards creating a gut feeling with increasing speed. Could it be? Could Grandma Tsunade actually have made such an impression on her that she thought drinking was okay? Was it possible that Jiraiya had added to it? Could she, in other words, see it as a sign of some sort that powerful people most often crushed skulls during daytime and emptied bars once the moon came up?

So many possibilities. He practically saw it before him, a scene where Tsunade and Sakura lay on the roof of a building at night. They would discuss a treatise on the effect of chakra on bones. Tsunade would look up at the star-specked night-sky and say, 'Don't you think it looks like a giant glass of dark liquor, Sakura, each star a different ice cube?' The profundity of it all then astounding and amazing Sakura into dazed silence and a compliant nod, because who could ever disagree to a statement like that? Tsunade would get out the sake afterwards and go on, saying, 'And so we try to create our own cosmos in our cups, to assure ourselves that we're strong and powerful.'

Naruto abandoned the image before it could break him.

"So . . . you're up for it?" he ventured.

Sakura shrugged helplessly, but there was a spark of interest in her eyes. "I never drank before," she said. "But I've always seen sensei do it, and even Kakashi. And Jiraiya does it too! So maybe . . ."

"The old pervert's sloshed all the time," said Naruto. Then, as if telling of an unrelated detail, he added, "He's about the strongest shinobi I've ever seen. Makes it look so easy sometimes, is what I always say."

No one ever said Uzumaki Naruto came onto this world without cunning. In fact, most people who met his ire would usually agree that he should have been named Cunnumaki, not Uzumaki—but that was such a bad pun, no one ever dared to use it instead of brat or demon—both perfectly acceptable slurs—because such a linguistic atrocity would just make them that much bigger of a target for his pranks.

Liquor won the battle. Sakura nodded, resolve shining in her eyes.

"Let's do it," she said, growing more confident. "I really want to try it out."

"I think I know where to get some," said Naruto. "And then we'll find a nice spot, and look at the sky or somethin' . . . "

"And make up stories about the stars!" she added, growing more excited.

"And talk 'bout life!"

"And life, yes!"

And so the next chapter of the evening began, and in Naruto's mind, a mind that surprisingly hadn't yet come into the enjoyment of a good buzz in its life either, it couldn't have started on a finer note.

Things were finally looking up for him.

* * *

An hour and several bottles later—because once you started, stopping was always so difficult—they lay in the garden of Kinzoku's mayor, looking up at the moon.

Naruto felt blades of grass tickle his feet. His sandals lay somewhere near the pond. About him was the song of night birds, the tapping of a bamboo pipe on stone, and far off the noise of the festival.

Sakura took a swig from their last bottle, then put her head on his stomach. Sake beaded off her chin. She threw the empty bottle with a laugh into the pond where it surely hit some koi and maimed it.

Then she turned laboriously until she lay half on him, mumbling, "'Shh good. Ishh very good!"

Naruto blinked, then giggled. Either she had no stamina at all, or the Kyuubi had helped him along: no matter the actual truth, _he_ felt drunk, goodly so, and _she_ was so smashed he'd be surprised if she remembered anything at all come morning.

His manly giggle made her head move up and down on his stomach, which made her grumble, and him in turn laugh harder.

Wheezing, he pressed out, "Lookin' mighty fine, Sakura," and reached out, originally to steady her head, but then his hand wandered to her hair and he brushed a strand of it away and behind her ear.

Things were so much easier this time around than back in their room. In a distant part of his mind the words 'Liquid Courage' flickered up and down. He ignored them though, because the why wasn't nearly half as interesting as the how. Sakura looked at him right then, with hooded eyes that excited him at the same time as they gave him chills.

With drunken swagger, Sakura took hold of his shoulders and dragged her body fully on his, bringing their faces closer together. As their lips met, Naruto had a last thought of, _Boy, Uzumaki, you've gone and done it now_.

Then he let instincts take over and did what he'd dreamed of quite a lot in the past, pulling her closer, smelling her perfume, his hands starting their journey over her body, trailing along her arms, along her shoulders, her back, further down, the kimono thin between them but already sliding down her body and making space, and her tongue and the way she breathed his name in a way that sounded so unlike the Sakura he knew. And he was glad to be able to cherish this, to take it all in: the way she had nestled her thighs around his right leg, even with clothing still between them, and the shape of her neck, and each tiny hair on her arms and nape—

And in that maelstrom of sensations, too many to understand, one annoying thought suddenly jumped at him and dug in. A lone soldier in a trench about to be overrun, even as her delicate fingers moved along his chest now, pushing the kimono out of the way and moving _downdowndown_ . . .

 _He_ understood what went on. _He_ cherished it. _He_ was fully present because apparently liquor wasn't much of a problem to a Jinchūriki.

But Sakura? She was so drunk out of her mind, did she even know what she was doing? Did it actually matter to her in that state?

Her fingers kept up their journey. Damn it felt just too good.

Sakura breathed a kiss on his chest, a wave of alcoholic smell wafting up from it.

He wanted to enjoy this. He wanted her to enjoy this. He wanted all this to be a ' _Hell yes, I wouldn't have it any other way'_ from her when she was fully there; otherwise, what was the point?

And the stronger that thought grew, the more he felt himself sober up.

"Shit . . . " he said eventually, summing up his feelings on the matter. Then, before Sakura could go on any further, he substituted himself the hell away.

* * *

Sasuke couldn't quite believe his eyes. He crouched on the roof of the mayor's house. Below, Naruto just stormed off after what looked like the first paragraphs of a smutty novel. But, strangeness aside, this confirmed that they were here. Konoha had come. And it had brought the only two people that still managed to annoy him by their sheer presence.

For a second he wondered if he should jump down and get rid of Sakura. But no, he had no desire to slit her throat. She was a pest, not an enemy per se.

He could abduct her though.

Down below, Sakura drunkenly rolled through the garden, giggling at the stars.

No abduction, then. That would be more stress than Sasuke was willing to endure. This was, in any case, Orochimaru's operation. He wouldn't do more work for this than necessary. Just a few more days of mushroom gathering and he'd be done with this chore and could get back to learning devastating techniques.

Itachi wouldn't know what hit him.

Sasuke eased his hand away from the grip of his sword, turned, and came face to face with a small, ugly monkey that pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Oook!"

Sasuke blinked.

No. He wasn't going to bother with this; whatever _this_ actually was. With a practiced seal he shunshin'd away. He'd find out where the two of them lived and then he'd leave and make a plan for what to do with them.

* * *

Fip felt as if reality had been severely distorted. Other monkeys weren't supposed to burst into a pile of leaves. However, he'd observed Naruto and Sakura doing some strange shit as well, so who knew what the porcupine-haired monkey was capable of?

He looked down into the courtyard where Sakura was. Beautiful and strange and exotic, also clearly the chosen mate of his savior. It tore at him, but no, he would not get between them. There was an honor code he'd started to develop over the past days, and he sensed on some primal level that keeping to it was important.

He hadn't much bothered with things like debt and pride before. He couldn't remember a time when it had been vital to him to survive. All this thinking and not just acting was actually getting somewhat strange; and he felt also beset at times by a surge of unknown emotions inside him, a feeling that he could not fully grasp. As if the walls around him closed in. Not primal fear that came when the walls were about to crush you. Something else. More like the noise walls closing in made, even when they were still a good distance away.

He would get clammy paws and have vague ideas of who he ought to be, how there must be some kind of greatness inside him waiting to be called on. Then came the crushing realization of who he actually was, and that contrast made the clammy paws clammier by a tenfold.

He had thought about this often now, since leaving the swamp. And sometimes he thought he even got somewhere, but that too wasn't quite the answer. He just knew, somewhere in his mind, that while it was normal to exist, it was decidedly _not_ normal to constantly contemplate your existence.

But this mystery had to be solved later. For whichever reason, right now he valued pride and debts and honor, though he had no real name for them. And so Fip knew that his debt to the Naruto was not yet paid in full. He had defended the mate; now he had to defend the other part of that equation as well.

Purpose clear in his awakening mind, he knuckled his way across the rooftops, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the porcupine monkey. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He felt himself tense at the thought.

When Fip found Naruto, it could not have been much later.

Down in the streets, Naruto stood despondently before the large white-haired monkey. They stood under the light of a lantern, and while Fip could not understand what their words meant, he still heard them.

" . . . don't want to talk 'bout it," said Naruto.

"Your call. Might help to get it off your chest though. If nothing else, whatever happened can probably be made better with a few drinks for tonight."

Naruto's expression soured.

"I don't think so."

"That bad, huh?"

In the back of his mind, Fip felt something spark. The thought of his greatness, of what he ought to be, returned. He looked about. No threat yet, and The Great White One looked capable.

So . . . what would a worthy pursuit be?

In the minutes that followed, Fip concentrated on the strange distortions of air their mouths made, matching them to their expressions and gestures.

* * *

Sasuke had found the inn but no Naruto inside. A strange curiosity, one he thought he had expelled flickered into existence. It made him search for the idiot. At least to see him once. To get a good grasp of how they had changed in different directions. To see what idiocy he had left for the benefit of power, he told himself with as much conviction as he could muster.

Rooftops flew by. The moon hung shining in the air, like a gigantic 'Screw You' to the darkness. The air was getting chilly now, whatever that meant for an island bordering on the tropical.

Sasuke was careful on his journey. Even if Naruto and Sakura were Chūnin by now, Konoha did not send two-man teams. Somewhere lurked a third teammate. Hinata might be the worst: her Byakugan could actually spot him on the roofs, despite all his cautiousness.

But the others? They weren't a problem. The first year of his training under Orochimaru had featured heavily everything you needed to know to become untrackable by scent, by chakra, by almost anything.

Sasuke was proud of those skills. He wanted Itachi to see him coming, of course, but if that weren't the case, he was confident he could sneak up on him, or at least not be spotted miles in advance.

One rooftop farther, he stopped and hid himself in the shadow of a water tank.

"Don't think talkin' helped at all," he heard Naruto's voice. "If anything I think I feel worse now."

Oh? Who was he talking to? The chakra was . . . miniscule. A civilian? Sasuke edged around the tank and peered down into the street.

Without wasting even a millisecond, he pulled back behind the tank, feeling his pulse explode in his throat.

Jiraiya of the Sannin? Goddamn Jiraiya of all people?

But Sasuke was confident in his hiding skills still. He could get out of this; he just had to stay still so as not to upset the status quo and have something unpredictable happen, as it tended to when Naruto was involved.

"I think it's better if you go back to the inn and get some sleep. Tomorrow the world will look a lot better."

" . . . doubt it."

"Trust me. I know this feeling, and I know it'll go away."

"If you say so . . . "

"I do. Now go get some shut-eye. I'll collect her on my way back."

Sasuke's heart beat more easily. They'd go now, both of them, and then he could get the hell away from Kinzoku.

Sasuke heard Naruto's steps recede into the city. He could allow himself to breathe soon.

"Oook!"

* * *

Senses honed through brutal training and a more than respectable intellect told Sasuke within the blink of an eye that he had to get away from that water tank, now.

He blasted off the roof, just as Jiraiya's fist smashed the tank he hid behind into the next street. Mid-jump, Sasuke made himself smaller, pulled his head in.

Jiraiya's foot slashed the air above him with enough force for the displaced wind to send Sasuke careening off course.

Sasuke tumbled to the floor, found balance, replaced himself anticipating another attack, then crashed headfirst into Jiraiya's broad chest.

Sasuke staggered back, then ducked. He swiped at the legs before him with his feet. Jiraiya stepped forward. When their legs met it felt as if Sasuke had smashed his shin against a wall of corrugated iron.

His Sharingan flared into existence.

All pretense of civilian chakra gone now, Jiraiya lit up in a monstrous blue that made Sasuke wince as he looked at it, tracing within a second the gigantic coils that wound through the whole body.

He jerked his arms up just in time to block most of the punch that sent him skidding across the next rooftop.

His arms shuddered uncontrollably.

And Orochimaru considered this his inferior? He held himself to be the stronger one? The amount of active chakra circulating within Jiraiya's body was massive, larger and more powerful than anything he'd seen from the Snake Sannin himself, hell, even from Itachi.

The realization brought a cold shiver to his neck.

He had to get away. He had to—

He felt Jiraiya's presence behind him, turned to block, to dodge, to do anything in order to survive. Mid-turn Jiraiya lightly tapped his shoulder, shoving him off the roof. Sasuke bounced on the street, rolled to his feet, and shunshin'd. Once, twice, the chakra in his body melting in his coils, being used again and again, propelling him forward, away from that monster, toward a place where he could process all this.

Shunshin. His hand cramped. His body stood in flames as the Cursed Seal activated. Wings shot out of his back.

The swamp. Too far still but he was out of Kinzoku. Soon. Just . . . once . . . more.

A pair of hands stopped his escape mid-shunshin. Within one motion they ripped out his wings. Before Sasuke even felt the pain, one hand gripped his collar and threw him to the ground, somewhere in the wild, miles away from Kinzoku.

When Sasuke recovered from the vertigo and vision came back into focus, he lay on the ground in a heap. His back was bloody. Spasms of pain shot up his spine, gathering around his neck.

Jiraiya of the Sannin sat on an upturned log before him, legs crossed at the ankles, looking expectantly.

And there'd been but one moment in his life so far when Sasuke had felt greater fear; and that realization alone made his skin crawl inwards.

* * *

Back in the streets of Kinzoku, Fip brushed off dirt from his hairy shoulder, considering a job well done. His newfound brother hadn't been stalked, and that weird spiky-haired monkey had been chased away by the strong, white one.

Fip felt in the depth of his being that his duty was done for that evening. More you really couldn't expect from any monkey.

He began to move away when something crunched under his paws. Carefully he retracted his arm. A plastic zip bag lay on the street, some weird, black crackers with red dots inside it.

He wanted to shrug. This had nothing to do with him. But he couldn't bring himself to leave it there after all. Maybe it belonged to Naruto?

Usually such considerations didn't take place in Fip's mind. You could say that, until a month ago or so, no considerations at all had taken place that went beyond his primal instincts. Now however he found himself faced with the impulse to take up the bag.

He didn't particularly like this sensation inside him. This kind of weight that smelled like it would keep you awake at night until you did something you really didn't feel like doing.

With great reluctance he picked up the bag and began his way toward the inn where he hoped to find Naruto.

A monkey's job, it appeared, was never done.

* * *

Back in the wilds outside Kinzoku, Jiraiya contemplated what to do with Uchiha Sasuke. He was, in general, a fan of chaining up traitors, especially those that hurt his godson. In the kindest scenario—which excluded Naruto—he'd roast the Uchiha slowly, literally, and then feed him to some creature. Irony bonus points if that creature were one of Orochimaru's failed experiments.

However . . .

And boy did he hate how the word however always put a stop to all the fun.

Naruto, praised be his white and shining soul, would never forgive him if he killed the Uchiha.

Likewise, and that was the real rub, Jiraiya bringing back Sasuke wouldn't change much either. The team dynamic was fundamentally flawed until that specific moment in which Naruto clubbed sense into Sasuke's head—whenever _that_ was. If Jiraiya brought him back, the next-best chance, Sasuke would flee again.

Normally that wouldn't pose much of a problem. Again: callous and not as peace-loving as he usually was, but if a traitor annoyed you too much simply killing them wasn't an option to be discarded.

The real problem, then, was that he wanted _Naruto_ to be the one that captured Sasuke, silly as the notion was.

Of course it'd be worth a lot for Konoha if he just took this chance and rolled with it. Indeed, that'd be the appropriate action.

But a much louder part of Jiraiya screamed that this was his godson's job. That he himself would have been frustrated with anyone but him and Tsunade bringing back Orochimaru. That Orochimaru coming back and then leaving again just as quickly would have only hurt more; so in his mind they just always had to have that one battle where they slugged their souls out and became friends again.

Well, speaking in analogy of course. Orochimaru had forced him to give up on that dream a long while ago.

For Naruto it was still fresh. And it pushed all the idealist buttons that could be reached for in Jiraiya's heart.

However.

Shinobi endured. That was the sad reality of their profession. And sometimes that meant to experience how your heart turned to stone because you had to cripple it yourself for the good of the village.

He couldn't in good conscience leave the Uchiha for Naruto when he got him here before him, dead to rights.

With sixty something years, you were expected to keep your emotions in check. The restrictions of being an adult . . .

Jiraiya sighed. Part of him enjoyed making the Uchiha squirm under his stare, letting him feel the full brunt of their disparate strengths.

In addition to the pain he must feel from his back of course. The gray wings lay in the grass nearby, twitching grotesquely.

"You're a shit, you know that, don't you?"

Sasuke kept silent. His eyes flitted around. Then they focused back on him, Sharingan spinning into action.

Jiraiya felt the attempt of a Genjutsu. The moment the web of illusions encountered the seal Jiraiya hid under his bracers, it slid off like rain on a window pane.

Jiraiya smiled mirthlessly. "That won't work, Uchiha. Fancy eyes don't do the trick with me."

Sasuke shrugged and deactivated his Sharingan. "I won't have to deal with you much longer anyway."

"Oh? Confident in your escape, are you?"

"Do you really think Orochimaru would send me here on my own, with you on the island as well?"

"You don't really think I'll get scared by his minions . . . "

"Not by them."

Jiraiya leaned closer, grinning like a wolf. "If you think Orochimaru will stop me, you've got another thing coming, boy. The last tussle we had I was a bit under the weather, so you can bet your ass that I want a rematch. Let him come, that won't get you off the hook."

"It's not you he's here for," said Sasuke, returning the grin with cold, arrogant precision. "You're slow for a Sannin, aren't you?"

Jiraiya's eyes widened. He scanned the Uchiha for falsehood and found none.

How could he have been that—

Every rational thought in his mind was overridden by the sudden concern for Naruto. The Uchiha became a lesser priority. First and foremost he had to secure his godson.

Knowing that Sasuke would delay him by at least a minute if he tried to subdue him, Jiraiya pushed himself away from the ground with enough force to leave craters in his wake.

A minute meant everything once Orochimaru threw himself into the mix.

* * *

The speed Sannin were capable to travel at when they really tried could rend the flesh off normal people. Trees did not fly by, they were non-existent in their shape: nothing but a mesh of green and brown colors thrown together in one single blur.

Wind whipped at Jiraiya's hair; using Hari Jizou, he flattened it against his spine.

Resistance threatened to sheer off his skin; pushing more chakra through the surface of his body, he hardened it and sped up once more.

Wildlife was usually noisy. At this speed Jiraiya heard nothing save the boom that occurred every time his sandal hit the ground.

Gritting his teeth he pumped more chakra into his legs, hardening the bones of his feet to withstand the pressure as he took it up another notch.

Kinzoku was on the horizon. Then it was there before him.

One leap catapulted him over the wall onto a roof squat in the middle of the city. Mid-fly he dialed down the chakra and went on without destroying the houses. His senses strained in the darkness as he rushed to the inn.

The festival was still going on but slowly winding down. He heard nothing like the sibilant noises of snakes though, or the explosions of an attack, or the screams of dying people. He did not smell anything unusual either. When he expanded his awareness to encompass every source of chakra in Kinzoku, nothing unusual stood out.

Naruto's chakra was normal. Well, as normal as one could call it. His reserves were so large the signal usually covered an area the size of a several housing blocks. Jiraiya harbored the suspicion that this had been the reason why Naruto had often managed to evade his capturers back in his childhood. They'd always just known the general area. His exact position couldn't be pinpointed with accuracy in that massive sea of chakra. It was such a counter-intuitive hiding method that it had worked splendidly. Naruto basically hid himself inside himself. There, too, slumbered a philosophical problem to think about, though Jiraiya lacked the time for it.

In an afterthought he checked Sakura's chakra too and found it stable and not agitated as well.

That didn't have to mean anything though. A Sannin was above petty modes of concealment that could be found out with a rough surface check.

With a last leap he cleared the distance to the inn, went up the stairs, and pushed away the linen of their improvised door.

Then he sagged against the doorframe, relieved.

Naruto snored, then wildly hit at air, turned and mumbled something intelligible. Sakura smiled into her pillow, a treacherous trail of saliva trailing along her lips.

Both slept. And try as he might, he found no sign of Orochimaru anywhere.

The adrenalin in his body gave way to the realization that the Uchiha had played him. Even though no sixteen year-old should be able to fool a spymaster with that much experience. Yet it happened. And strangest of all, Jiraiya was sure that Sasuke had spoken the truth back then. He would have sniffed out any lie that came over the boy's lips.

So . . . How?

* * *

His heart beating a violent rhythm in his chest, Sasuke staggered back into the cave. Adder was still waiting on him. He held fast to the wall, not trusting his legs to carry him all the way after that encounter. He left a bloody trail as well.

"Sasuke-sama, you're back!" Adder rose from her meditative pose.

Sasuke struggled over to his bed. He needed to sit down. Just for a second; not long enough to show weakness. Just . . . to get things processed. Adder kept talking but he ignored her. In his mind, the short chase from Kinzoku replayed over and over again, each try to analyze it thwarted by the voice that shouted 'He got you without breaking a sweat in a manner of minutes.'

Sitting down he found that his legs slowly stopped shaking.

He had escaped. And he had Orochimaru to thank for it. If the Snake Sannin hadn't gone after Naruto when he did, then—

Sasuke blinked. Why would Orochimaru go after Naruto? He found playing with the Kyuubi amusing, surely, but he had never made any comment at all that he was interested in Naruto on a deeper level.

The tingling of adrenalin across his body dispersed. His thoughts slowed in tandem, clearing up the mess of primal fear that Jiraiya had left him in.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Then, oh so slowly, his lips pulled up into a grin.

Inside his memories he found the telltale sign of a Sharingan-induced Genjutsu, with a chakra signature that couldn't be more familiar if it tried.

He shattered the illusion with a thought. Memories rushed back, of remembering that the one thing he knew for sure about Jiraiya was a fierce love for Naruto, of hedging the idea to put an illusion on himself in order to make the bluff convincing, of layering a weak illusion on Jiraiya to distract him from the real aim of activating his Sharingan.

His grin transformed into an honest smile. " _That won't work, Uchiha_ ," he muttered at the floor. " _'Fancy eyes don't do the trick with me_ ' huh?"

"Sasuke-sama?"

The smile died, replaced by flat lips drawn in a scowl. He rose from the bed.

"You're not to attack those two again," he said. "Keep as far away as possible until you get new orders. We need Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru-sama? For Chūnin? Surely—"

"They've got Jiraiya with them."

Adder paled, which had to take real effort because her complexion was already snow white.

"Are you—"

He shot her a glare that silenced her in an instant.

"Go," he said. "And stay away from them."

Adder bowed, then left the cave.

Alone again, Sasuke stared at the wall. He had tricked Jiraiya—if there was one positive take-away from the day it was this. But the difference between them had been so massive, it defied belief. How could there be, after two years under Orochimaru, such a gap in strength? He thought he was catching up to the Snake Sannin. If that was the level they played at, though, he couldn't be sure anymore if not all of his beliefs were just arrogance encouraged by Orochimaru himself.

Which made the 'apprenticeship' much more dangerous than previously assumed. He was well aware of Orochimaru's goal and that revenge would be meaningless until carried out by himself, not hands that looked like his but were steered by the Snake Sannin.

The mark on his shoulder throbbed. He uttered a grunt as his shoulder blades twitched painfully. It would take weeks for the seal to restore its old powers. And months to ease away the memory of Jiraiya actually _ripping out his wings_.

He frowned.

Perhaps it was foolish to try and match a Sannin on physical terms. It would take much longer until such a chasm could be bridged, longer than two years in any case. But what if Orochimaru was weak? The moments before he switched bodies had to be rough. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a strict time limit.

Sasuke frowned. What else could he use to his advantage?

His Sharingan. A feeling of pride rushed through his body, galvanizing his thoughts. He had tricked a Sannin today, and _that_ had been solely due to his heritage. Ultimately there was no better blood than an Uchiha's; why not bet on that edge? He had the most powerful Doujutsu in the history of the Elemental Countries at his command, why not sharpen that sword until he could stick it right into Orochimaru's weakened heart?

* * *

Next morning Naruto stood in the inn's communal bath, letting cold water pour over his body and aching head. The night had brought little sleep and even less avoidance of what happened last evening.

Naruto leaned his head against the tiled wall of the shower. He'd done the right thing. He knew that. He was sure everyone from Grandma Tsunade to Jiraiya to all his friends would tell him the same.

 _Sakura's finger trailing across his chest; the nape of her neck . . ._

He clenched his fist, a last ditch attempt at control. Then he couldn't control himself anymore and hammered it against the wall. The tile cracked in two, fell, and broke into shards on the ground.

If it really was the right choice, why was he so goddamn frustrated about it?

His lips twitched their way into a sad grin as he kept leaning his head against the wall, eying the broken tile at his feet. Because all of him screamed that it hadn't been the right choice, even though he _knew_ it was. Because right now he couldn't help that his mind was crowded with images of what if they had continued, what if that had just been the natural way, what if it would have changed his relationship to Sakura for the better? What if afterwards he could have felt her skin so much more? Could feel her breath on his ear whenever he wanted?

He squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Action, Uzumaki_ , he thought, turning off the shower. _Nothing's over yet. Just keep at it._

He slapped his cheeks with both palms, blinked a few times, then toweled himself off and slipped into his clothes. They'd have to find Sasuke and take care of the swamp. That he could focus on.

After brushing his teeth Naruto went across the hallway, back to their room.

" . . . so there was nothing with Naruto? Isn't that what young people are supposed to do?"

He stopped at hearing Jiraiya's teasing voice. Naruto wasn't quite near the sheet that replaced their door but close enough to listen in.

"No! Not that it's any of your business!" said Sakura. "And I'm glad it didn't."

"Pining after your other teammate, then?" Jiraiya's voice was humorous, though Naruto recognized a subtle undercurrent of something else beneath those words. "It's always the strong, silent ones, is it?"

Sakura hmpfed. "It's not because of Sasuke, if that's what you're referring too," she said. Then her voice lowered to an embarrassed whisper and Naruto had to concentrate harder to hear her. "Naruto . . . He's the closest thing I have to a brother."

She paused, then added with a subdued tone, "He's practically family. More so than my mother and father in any case . . . "

Then her voice became iron-hard. "If you tell him that, I'll kill you. Or ask Tsunade-sama to do it for me."

Jiraiya chuckled. "No need to involve Tsunade-hime. It's not my place to tell him anything."

It grew silent until Jiraiya cleared his throat. Naruto recognized this as the imminent sign of impeding wisdom. He'd heard it often enough. "You might want to tell him that yourself someday soon though," said Jiraiya. "You two are shinobi, Sakura. I know you think you're young and hard to kill, but we don't live too safely in our profession. It's better to err on the side of caution as a shinobi. And that involves telling important people how you feel as well. One day it might be too late to tell him all that."

"I . . . I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking."

Naruto stood in the hallway. Brother, eh? Family . . .

 _Don't think about it, Uzumaki. Just keep movin' forward_.

He tried to put on his best grin, practiced and perfected over the first years of his life, and found that he couldn't quite manage it after all. He'd gotten so used to not having to use it . . . Amazing how quickly you forgot such simple things.

Still, he tried. Keep it simple. Smile and go in.

"There you are," said Jiraiya when Naruto entered the room. "I was afraid you've drowned yourself or slipped on the soap."

"Hilarious," said Naruto. He sat down at the table, avoiding looking at Sakura while he counted the bread crumbs on Jiraiya's plate.

Jiraiya nodded. "I know; that's why I said it."

"What's the plan for today?" asked Sakura.

The shift in the atmosphere was palpable. Maybe it was because he knew Jiraiya a lot better now after those two years, but Naruto detected the subtle ways in which the old pervert tensed.

He looked up. "Somethin' happened?"

"You could say that," said Jiraiya. "I had a run in with your teammate yesterday."

Wide eyes. "What? Where is he?"

"Right now? In the swamp, somewhere. He . . ." Jiraiya sighed. "He tricked me into thinking Orochimaru was after you. I've a good idea how he managed that, but back then it worked beautifully."

Sasuke tricking even the old pervert? That sounded about right.

"The larger problem is that things could get a lot more dangerous for us now," Jiraiya went on. "I'd bet good money he's called Orochimaru by now."

Naruto leaned in, knuckles right on the table. "What're we goin' to do?"

"You? For today, nothing. I want you to stay here until I've visited all my contacts on Danube to alert them and send some of our information to Konoha." His brows narrowed into a serious expression. "I mean it. Stay here in Kinzoku and away from that swamp. I'll leave a messenger seal with you, Sakura. If you notice anything strange at all, activate it. Don't hesitate, just push your chakra into the matrix and I'll come as quickly as I can. From now on we're only moving outside together." Then his face brightened up. "Tsunade-hime would kill me if I let you two investigate on your own while Orochimaru is close by."

Naruto felt heat rush up his ears. "You want us to do nothin'?"

"Exactly." Jiraiya leaned on the table as well, and if they weren't glaring at each other, Naruto would think they were so close they'd kiss soon. "I get that you're burning to go out and find Sasuke, but we need to be smart about this, Naruto. The moment Orochimaru got involved this became an S-ranked mission. You know that stuff."

"But doin' nothing?"

Jiraiya intensified his glare, then leaned back and sighed. "Think, idiot-student of mine. You've met Orochimaru before. Remember how _that_ felt and then tell me again to go at this half-cocked like you want to."

That was, sadly enough, true. Naruto's memory was good enough to call up how the Snake Sannin's malevolence had felt up close; it definitely wasn't something he could remind himself of without the hairs on his neck standing up like needles.

Then Sakura pitched in, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Jiraiya-sama is right, Naruto," she said, not noticing Naruto tense at the contact. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can pass the time together somehow." She smiled at him. "It's not like we're not used to waiting, what with Kakashi-sensei and all."

 _Don't show anything, Uzumaki. Don't you dare show anything now!_

He forced the corners of his mouth upward. "Right. No need to be all hot-blooded, eh? We'll get through the time somehow, won't we, Sakura?"

She nodded, satisfied. "Precisely!"

Jiraiya looked concerned, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Good. You know what to do when trouble's calling, Sakura. I'll get going now. If it goes well I'm back before sunset. And tomorrow we can start going after the origin of the swamp."

Jiraiya fastened the giant scroll to his back and left the room.

And as Sakura began thinking out loud about ways to pass the time, Naruto felt his insides clench.

No matter how hard he tried, his grin just wouldn't stay up.

* * *

It took Naruto half an hour with Sakura until he couldn't stomach it anymore. He waited for a moment when she wasn't looking, then left a clone with her and ran. Where to? Irrelevant. Away was the keyword.

In moments of frustration and sadness it sometimes helped to think of friends, to wonder how they were doing, or how they would have behaved in your stead. It was a good exercise to get you out of your head for a bit, perhaps even to adopt a new perspective that might help you move forward. Or so Iruka said.

Naruto thought on that advice as he jumped aimlessly from roof to roof. It was worth a try at least.

Well, what would Shikamaru do?

. . . nothing, because that was essentially what Shikamaru did all his life.

And Shino?

Naruto frowned, trying to imagine himself with a long overcoat, the sensation of bugs crawling over his skin, and the protective shade of his glasses against the sun. That wasn't enough though. The most important part was missing.

Logic. That was how Shino made decisions. Thinking like an old geezer, weighing pros and cons carefully.

Naruto grimaced.

That way he wouldn't get much farther. Shino was just so far away from who _he_ was, even if Naruto could reason himself through this, he'd just feel wrong the whole time. He shuddered himself out of his imagining attempt. His fantasy was far too strong to do that for long with someone who had bugs all over him.

Kiba, then?

Naruto furrowed his brows. Then he sighed. Kiba was fine; but Kiba was also Kiba and that was all the justification needed to give up on that attempt as well.

Which left him with one alternative. How would Chōji deal with emotions like this?

Naruto thought. Then he thought some more, Gama-chan heavy in his pants.

 _That_ would do the trick. That was actually a way he could feel himself get right into . . .

And so it came that, an hour or so later, Naruto found himself on the roof of a restaurant. From below came the smell of fried chicken and grease, and also of noodles and spinach, and of sweet syrup and meat balls and bean paste. All those smells that he had miraculously converted to tastes in his mouth already. Several times.

Scattered around him, a flotilla of empty cups, bowls and containers. Somewhere behind him lay the empty husk of Gama-chan.

He'd apologize later.

Then he laughed. At least he wouldn't have enough money to pay for damages anymore.

Naruto rubbed his stomach. Good old Chōji really knew how to keep your mind busy. When Naruto's black, crumb-strewn shirt strained under his expanding belly, he burped to get some air out and relieve it of pressure.

 _The problem, Uzumaki, is that you've got no idea what to do now, don't cha?_

No money. No food. No ideas.

What a shit way to pass the time. Jiraiya couldn't come back soon enough.

"Oook?"

Naruto blinked. Fip sat next to him, head in a bowl, paws simultaneously scavenging two paper baskets for remains.

"What you doin' here, boy? Not that I mind the comp'ny. 's not the greatest of days, is it?"

"Oook."

"Have at it," said Naruto, seeing that Fip was climbing into more bowls. "Sorry, can't get you more. Must be starved after that fightin' business yesterday, but sadly Gama-chan's good as dead."

Fip pulled his head out of a container and looked at Naruto with concern shining in his monkey eyes.

Then he jumped off the roof onto a fence, and from there climbed all the way down, slinking through the street.

"Well so much for that," said Naruto. "Not good enough for you either, eh?"

He sighed, then kept looking out over the maze of roofs stretching away from the restaurant to the wall circling Kinzoku. He heard bells, signaling incoming ships in the harbor; somewhere a light buzzed to life.

Boy how he wished to just pack up and get the hell off Danube with the old pervert. Things had worked out well enough in the past two years, but this freaking island and Sakura shot it all to pieces.

"Oook!"

Naruto looked up. Fip was climbing up the same way he had left, a bit slower though, in his left paw a plastic zip bag.

With food inside.

"What you got there?" Naruto opened the bag, sniffed the strange, spicy smell, then reached in. "What's that? Some cookie?"

Fip shrugged.

"Right enough," said Naruto. "Doesn't matter, I s'ppose." He put some into Fip's waiting paws, then pushed a load into his mouth, crunching his frustration away.

Cheeks bloated, he grinned.

And mimicking Shino's voice in his mind, he thought, _It only stands to reason that if food makes you feel better for as long as you eat it, you should keep eating it_. _Basic logic._

* * *

In the depths of its cage, the Kyuubi slumbered. Each exhalation blasted waves of sewage against the metal bars keeping it locked up.

The sedately malicious aura around the sleeping Bijū—actively malicious was reserved for occasions of meeting its prisoner—shifted. Imperceptibly at first, like a blade of grass in a meadow that bent the wrong way in a storm.

Stranger tides arrived when not just the blade of grass changed direction but the storm itself, realigning the way the wind blew past.

Feeling a curious twitch in the fur behind its ears, the Kyuubi opened its eyes.

Something had changed.

Was changing still.

* * *

 **AN:** Hope you enjoyed yourself. Cheers, Eilyfe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Everything belongs to Kishimoto.

 **Thanks:** To the DLP team for editing.

 **AN:** Last round, folks. Enjoy yourself.

* * *

 **Monkey Business**

Chapter III

* * *

In his cave, Sasuke sat in the shadiest corner available. His Sharingan spun at a relaxed pace. In his lap lay a book he would not talk about ever, to anyone. In moments of severe skepticism, Sasuke told himself that to beat an enemy you had to know him inside out. That research of this kind was appropriate, because nothing dominated the life of Jiraiya quite as much as his authorial career.

"Sasuke."

Years earlier Sasuke's head would have snapped upwards, a sure sign of surprise. Those years were long past. He closed the book, put it beside him, and rose gracefully.

He _had_ been engrossed in the story. To admit that was tantamount to weakness though. A trait no Uchiha possessed past childhood.

"Orochimaru," he said, each syllable pronounced with precision.

The Snake Sannin smirked. "You have taken up an interesting hobby, I see. Is there a particular reason? A boy with your . . . looks should have no problem to find adequate company." Orochimaru laughed, which even after all this time still managed to evoke some anxiety in Sasuke. "Then again, if you cannot be bothered with the trivialities of courtship, I am sure there are other options available. Ask Kabuto if you are so inclined. He is quite versed in breaking the mind of breeding sows."

Sasuke said nothing, because what _could_ you say to that? He did the same as always in such a situation. He stared right back at Orochimaru, making sure no emotion showed anywhere on his face, and imagined how he'd someday ram a spike through that man. After the Sannin had been duly squeezed of course.

The yellow of Orochimaru's eyes glowed in the darkness. "The snake you sent told me you encountered Jiraiya . . . "

"He is here, with Naruto and Sakura. They're investigating the swamp."

"That is very unfortunate. I believed Danube to be far away from the reach of shinobi." Orochimaru paused. "Sending those three here is quite . . . curious, Sasuke. One might wonder why them specifically and not a standard team."

"I wouldn't know," said Sasuke. _Though I have a fair idea. I shouldn't have bought those books._

Orochimaru waved his hand. "I suppose it does not matter now. Jiraiya is here, so we have to deal with that. You say you escaped in a fight with him?"

"I did."

Yellow eyes narrowed briefly, then the frown evaporated. Orochimaru's lips pulled up. "Well done, Sasuke. You're growing stronger by the day."

Hurried footsteps interrupted them. A second later, Adder stood before them, frozen at the sight of Orochimaru. Belatedly, she threw herself to the ground, prostrating herself.

"Orochimaru-sama."

"Talk," said Orochimaru. "And do stand up. How unseemly. Has Sasuke made you do this?"

"N- No, Orochimaru-sama. It is just your presence, and—"

"Do speak," he said with the smile of a man who pridefully views a past accomplishment. "What has you in such a hurry, dear?"

Adder blushed.

"That- that Chūnin! The blond one! I've noticed a massive chakra and took a look, and—"

"I told you to stay away from them!" Sasuke hissed.

"Be silent, Sasuke," said Orochimaru with a dismissive gesture. "Yes, dear, continue. You took a look and . . . ?"

"And I saw him entering the swamp, Orochimaru-sama. He did not seem to be . . . well, _sane_."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Alone?"

"It appears so," said Adder. "I watched him for half an hour and there was no one with him."

Orochimaru hummed in his throat. "That in itself means little. Jiraiya is more resourceful than most give him credit for." Laughing he went on, "We will take a look at this, all three of us."

"I can come with you?" Adder asked, a sickening admiration in her voice.

"Indeed you can. Be careful though. If this _is_ a trap I would rather not give Jiraiya too many openings." Orochimaru stepped closer, caressing her pale cheek. "I would be rather displeased if something happened to you, my dear. You have been one of the projects that brought me the most pleasure in recent years. And to have you leveraged because of a silly mistake would just tear me apart."

Adder shivered under Orochimaru's ministrations.

It should be due to fear, not excitement. But Sasuke thought that what _should_ be was far off the mark in this case.

Orochimaru just had that way about him, to twist whatever came into reach for his amusement.

The ones that didn't break were probably the most dangerous.

* * *

On the edge of Kinzoku, Jiraiya's mind was filled with emptiness.

Which subsequently made him speed up and race to the inn. Absence was the worst thing you could find when looking for a chakra source like Naruto's.

Taking several roofs at a time he entered the inn through the hole in the wall. Sakura sat at the table, a piece of green fabric in front of her. On further inspection, the fabric turned out to be an empty purse in the shape of a frog. Sakura was biting her nails, staring at the purse. She jumped to her feet the moment Jiraiya made his presence known.

"Where is he?" said Jiraiya.

"I don't know! We've been taking a walk through the city and he's been listening to me, and then a wooden beam from a construction site fell on him and he . . . and he wasn't there anymore! I . . . I had no idea I was walking with a clone! I used the seal to call you and tried to find him but all I got is this damn thing!"

She threw the empty purse on the floor, eyes frantic.

Oh boy. Jiraiya was torn between calming Sakura and admonishing her for having been fooled by a clone. Such things happened to cannon fodder, not the student of a Sannin.

"And now he's out there somewhere," Sakura went on, "and Orochimaru's out there too, and Sasuke, and they could find him and it's all my—"

Jiraiya did what worked best in his experience. He put his hand on Sakura's head. That shut them up most of the time because they were always quite confused why his barrel-like hand was just lying there on their head, unmoving. Best case scenario: it confounded the mind into straying away from tears and panic. Worst case: they'd call him strange and edge away, also having left behind tears and panic—or, well, graduating to a better kind of panic because he was actually quite docile.

Sakura just stood still.

Good. She was confused.

"Breathe," said Jiraiya.

She did. A moment later her heaving chest became more peaceful.

"Now," said Jiraiya, "we need to find Naruto. Have you tried sensing him?"

She nodded. "I did, but something's not right with me," she said. "My readings were off all day long. God, I didn't even notice that I was walking with a clone! I'm not sure _anything_ I sense right now is accurate."

Jiraiya's brow wrinkled. Then a flash illuminated the caverns of his mind. "Was that your first time drinking?"

" . . . Yes?"

"Tsunade never told you anything about it?"

"She just smiled and said 'You'll see'."

"Sounds like her," said Jiraiya. "Probably counted on taking your first drink with her."

 _Probably also thought you'd be far too uptight to drink on a mission._

"Why?" said Sakura.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Right now, Naruto is the priority. I'll help you on the way."

"Way to where?"

"The swamp."

Sakura goggled. "How can you sense him so far away?"

"Trade secret," said Jiraiya.

In truth, he had no clue if Naruto was in the swamp. But if you divided Danube in sections and assigned each section a color representing its danger to Naruto, the swamp was a lurid red. And knowing his godson, he'd stumble into that place without thinking twice because of some ridiculous accident.

Besides, the closer they came to the swamp the easier it would be to tell if Naruto was inside.

"Let's go," he said. "We wasted enough time already."

They set out through the hole in the wall. And while they flew across Danube's landscape, Jiraiya explained to Sakura that liquor affected medic-nins and sensors differently than most other people. The profession heightened their senses and connectedness with their body to such a degree that the liquor wreaked havoc with their abilities even hours later if they didn't know how to counteract it.

Jiraiya was glad that Sakura was a prodigy in her own right and learned quickly, because fighting would have been out of question with her like that.

Not for the first time he also wondered if that particular detail had been the ultimate driving force behind Tsunade's comet-like ascent to the top of the healer pyramid. In the ultimate battle between dulling the edge of death and seeing healing as the only way to prevent more of the same, she catapulted herself into an endless feedback loop, in which drinking more and more to scratch out memories necessitated even better control and higher abilities.

He was too afraid to ask though. That was the kind of hypothesis that would land an inquisitive mind in the hospital ten times out of ten with Tsunade.

* * *

Naruto stumbled. Where to? He had little idea. Well . . . actually he had many ideas—left, right, the cardinal directions, up, down . . . at least as far down as you could go with the earth between you and the sky—just that none of those ideas made any sense in the larger context of cosmic forces moving incontrovertibly toward each other, like fire and water about to clash, elements facing off in a last catacly— . . . in a _really_ bad fight.

The truth was that whenever he thought he had found a good explanation for why he was wading through the swamp, forces beyond his control twisted it around, made it into a funny pretzel—the baker's crooked try at infinity—that offered nothing bar a million options with double that on choices on how to behave. Which left him with the conclusion that he must have a good explanation—why else would he be there?—but the powers that be made a big game out of it, haha, and ultimately everything would be fine . . . or something.

A wave of fuzzy feelings rose and ebbed away. He was left with a strange sense of calm, thoughts circling in a more or less ordinary manner. In contrast to his previous condition that was Shino-like logic, really.

He stopped at a tree and leaned against it, unable to decide between holding his aching head or his gurgling stomach.

 _Shouldn't have eaten those biscuits, Uzumaki. Hot damn—_

A wave of nausea interrupted his thoughts, followed by a second wave of fuzzy feelings. Already he could feel his mind assume the shape of a messed up bowl of Ramen again. He looked with suffering at the tree. It was the ash trees he had marked with Sakura.

The swamp . . .

Why was he here again?

But the wave crested at that point and a reason planted itself in his mind, accompanied by a dozen pictures springing to life around him. Sasuke was here. He could bring him back. They'd fight each other with cucumbers. The last strike would come from an inconvenient mosquito used as a shuriken.

 _Bzzzzz—_

Naruto slapped his neck on instinct.

The power lessened. Coherency returned, somewhat. His body was hot as if he wore a jacket made of coals.

"Fip?" he called.

No reply.

Where was Fip, his mately mate? Why wasn't he . . .

Naruto stopped. Questions were confusing most of the time, but at this moment he thought his head would explode if he asked further.

In the end there was nothing to it but go looking and explore the vast world ahead.

Naruto trudged on, eyes wide as the swamp moved with him. He felt the next wave coming, and with the last dredge of mental ability dreadfully concluded that the waves grew in strength each time they set in.

He had the horrible feeling that he hadn't seen anything yet, at all.

Then the feeling vanished, because, well, other things started to occupy his frazzling mind.

* * *

Inside its cage, the Kyuubi hung from the ceiling like an overgrown bat, each of its nine majestic tails used to anchor itself so it wouldn't fall down. Its massive eyes stared right at the water below, in which strange colorful shapes danced with each other. That dance was suspicious. It also had the effect of being reflected in the Kyuubi's eyes, a reflection the Kyuubi then saw reflected in the water itself, moving on like that ad infinitum.

The Kyuubi had been transfixed by the sight of its endless reflections for a while now, and it had no intention to stop anytime soon. Everything about a Bijū was magnified. That saying went double for narcissism.

Somewhere in the back of its malevolent presence the Kyuubi knew that what it did there was unworthy. That its host was at fault. That all manners of punishment should be meted out with violent prejudice.

For this moment, however, in which nothing mattered save infinity, it also felt a strange kinship to its host. As if, dare it be pronounced, an alliance between the two was possible.

A treacherous thought. One that had been fleeting an hour ago or so, but the minute twitch in the Kyuubi's expression had been enough. Repetition by repetition, the Kyuubi had seen the twitch in its reflection grow, and hypnotized itself into a state where, inch by inch, it confronted itself with the overpowering force of cosmic love.

* * *

At the other side of the swamp, far away from Naruto, Fip went through the terrible beauty of evolution on fast-forward. He was an odd monkey. Always had been. Still, even for an odd monkey he was among the strangest creatures in this swamp, and that included the bear-sized beavers one river away.

This was because Fip had learned not only to remember and think abstract thoughts, but inside the swamp he now also started mumbling to himself.

"Sake," Fip muttered. One of the words he'd heard often enough by now.

His tail twitched. He froze. Sweat beaded down his furry brow.

On some level he knew he shouldn't have eaten those things in the bag. If his mind had felt strange before, with all those new ideas and concepts, then it now felt straight abnormal. As if it had been walled in before and those walls now pushed forcefully outwards, expanding, if you will, towards regions unknown.

The sensation would be unpleasant, horrible even, if not for a rather significant detail. His development gave him the ability to plan for the future, something he had not considered before, always running on instinct after the next banana.

Now, the power of contemplation at his command, he could strategize his way into a better future. King of Monkeys. More female monkeys than you could ever dream of. The pink-haired one was exotic and taken, but forget her (nice as she was). The swamp, nay the whole world now gave him the opportunity to . . . to find as many female monkeys as he could, and to woo all of them. They'd all wait on his whims and bring him fruit and other delicacies. And if he really tried he might be able to convince some other animals to defend them, to serve as . . . as warriors! No, conquerors! In the name of a common monkey good.

He rubbed his monkey paws together.

The way forward was clear. All he needed to do now was to put his plan into action.

His mind abuzz with the possibility of an eternal monkey dominion, Fip knuckled deeper into the swamp. He didn't notice how, as forces collided inside him, he began to increase in size, his stench becoming worse, and his brain growing even more powerful.

* * *

Right next to Orochimaru, Sasuke stood on a branch and observed some distance away a large monkey walk in circles before a congregation of other animals. The sight was oddly mesmerizing, and although they had a clear objective, Sasuke thought that even Orochimaru found it transfixing.

They had crossed to this point carefully, unsure Naruto's exact location. His chakra signature wasn't any indication. It went haywire at a frightening frequency. Sometimes it encompassed a small place, sometimes the whole swamp. At yet another moment it split in several sources dancing in figure-eights.

"Orochimaru-sama?" Adder said.

"Yes, dear?"

"He's not here, is he?"

Orochimaru nodded.

"The monkey's got an unusually high amount of chakra," said Sasuke, watching the way blue lines knotted themselves together in a large cluster inside the brain.

Orochimaru hummed. "A side-effect of the swamp procedure? It _is_ possible that it influences the animals in other ways than just size." With a sigh he dragged his eyes away from the monkey. "Let us continue."

Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan. Together they moved on

* * *

Even in his pretzel-minded state, the sight before him struck Naruto as severely disturbing. He stood before the cage in his mind, sewage bubbling around his ankles, and engaged the Kyuubi in a staring contest while it hung from the ceiling and tried to win by pulling faces.

As mentioned, disturbing. Eons-old chakra manifestations of hatred should not do that.

Still, Naruto was never one to shy away from a good staring contest. His memory of how he got here was spotty in the details, but he realized dimly that whatever affected him like this also affected the Kyuubi.

Minutes stretched. Or was it seconds?

Then the Kyuubi pushed out its lips, blowing him a saliva soaked kiss with a row of sharp teeth blinking up shortly.

Naruto looked away. You couldn't win against _that_. And he felt trying to would nudge him irreversibly to the end of the spectrum that screamed 'I'm not human anymore'.

"Ha!" the Kyuubi roared its victory, loosening its anchorage to the ceiling. It whipped through the air, landing with a giant splash on all fours in front of Naruto, just the steel bars of the cage between them.

"Beat you, host," it said smugly.

With grudging admiration, Naruto nodded. "You did."

Somewhere in the back of his mind an alarm bell was ringing, to the effect that, were it heard, it would scream: 'Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!' But whatever those biscuits had been, they shouted down that alarm bell, so much so that it wasn't more than the faintest of whispers.

"You—" both began.

They stopped and grinned at each other like only two people could who knew exactly what the other was thinking.

"You first," said the Kyuubi.

"No, no," said Naruto, "you've been first. No need t'be impolite."

The Kyuubi hummed in its throat. A sound as if your saw got stuck in a metal beam. "Together, then?"

"Together."

The Kyuubi lifted its paw, counting down. "One, two, three . . ."

"Want to try it out?" both asked, and "Yes," both answered in unison.

Snickering, Naruto went up to the cage and reached his hand through it. The Kyuubi put up its palm. Both touched.

"And now?" said Naruto.

"It's all about ritual, host," said the Kyuubi. In another dimension it might have worn a monocle and a top hat saying that. "You need to say something profound and then try to pull at my chakra."

"'s all? Well no problem there. Ramen!"

Then Naruto pulled with all his might at the Kyuubi's chakra. And with the sudden and strange synergy between them working in his favor, Naruto's body reacted. Red chakra that usually slunk around him in a seething, frothing mass of malice now danced, light-stepped, in the form of large shawls, wrapping him in a cocoon of silky power.

"Woaaahh!"

Such a beautiful feeling. Warm. Comforting. Not just eating Ramen, but being filled to the brim with its pure, undiluted essence.

Then the red chakra spiraled up to his brain, whispering past the tenketsu, until it met strands of quirky silver. Red and silver circled each other like shy lovers who knew they'd have a steamy affair soon but could not quite jump into action just yet. First, important questions had to be answered: for example, what did each of them make a living with? The silver chakra looked like it could weave a mean knot; the red assured it that with the earnings of its force-of-nature like tendencies alone they could make ends meet.

That was all they needed. Red and silver embraced each other, entangling chakra limbs in wild abandon.

In the cage, Naruto noticed little of this at first.

Then the effect of the love affair set in, like a sledgehammer to the brain.

* * *

Naruto had a split-second to look wide-eyed at the Kyuubi, before he was swept away into a stream of colors that sounded like horns and trumpets and . . . flutes? The stream spat him out a moment later and he landed with both knees on solid stone.

Wincing from the impact, he looked up and found himself in a large hall. On a pillow in front of him sat Fip, wearing the hat and robe of the Hokage, smoking pipe. To the left and right of Fip were two giant doors, both made of ivory.

Naruto climbed to his feet. "And where've you been?"

Fip puffed on the pipe and motioned to each door once.

"Want me to take a look, eh? No trouble, no trouble. It's some crazy stuff though, even makin' you wear robes. Fetchin' though. I'm not sure any monkey could say no to _that_ . . . "

Fip didn't answer, so Naruto rambled on.

"I've had the weirdest stuff with the fox just then, you wouldn't believe it. It's just crazy." He put his palm against the door. "What's in here then?"

He prepared himself for some effort to shove it open, and then fell inside as it opened by itself.

The scenery shifted. He was . . .

 _What the hell?_

He looked from behind a bush on a scene that made his whole body ache. Sakura lying on him, hands wandering, his nose full of her scent, feeling, even at his hiding spot, the full brunt of what he could have—

Another shift. He stood in a hallway, hearing Sakura say, " _He's the closest thing to a brother I have._ "

His pulse raced. Everything inside him screamed to get away from this memory. It was too vivid, too fresh, bringing up all the what-could-have-beens he tried to shut out.

The scene kicked him out and he landed back in front of Fip.

Naruto glared at him. "What's the damn point of showin' me this?"

Fip shrugged, then motioned toward the left door.

"Forget it," said Naruto. "I'm not getting anywhere close to that thing. I'm goin' to find an exit."

Turning away from Fip, he came face to face with images of the scene he had just left. Sakura all over him, her hair tickling his cheek, and him jumping away and—

He turned back. Fip was silent.

Heat shooting up his face, Naruto stalked up to him and reached for the collar of the robe to lift him up. His hand went right through it.

"What the . . ."

Fip motioned once more to the left door. Naruto still balked at this, but the second he thought about just not turning and staying there, images of Sakura appeared everywhere.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but there she was, too, and no matter where he turned, everywhere he saw the decision he'd made.

He opened his eyes. "Having fun at least?"

With renewed urgency, Fip motioned toward the left door; and, resignation spreading, Naruto pushed it open.

The bottom fell away under his feet. He hurled through a dark space, a new scene slowly constructing itself around him. Then he landed in the garden once more, behind the bush, just that it was so thick he couldn't see through it and perhaps that was for the better.

Suddenly he heard sounds: moans, grunts, panting.

Was he—? Where they—?

He clawed his way through the bush, thorns slicing red lines into his arms. Yet when he arrived at the other side he wasn't in the garden anymore. He was in . . . Tsunade's office? And both of him and Sakura wore Jōnin vests, just that they were older and she stood a good length away from him. "I know you hate to work with him, Sakura," Tsunade told her, "but the situation is dire. We can't risk the village's annihilation . . . "

And just as quickly as the scene had appeared before him, he was dragged back as if pulled with grappling hooks.

He found himself back before Fip, his insides clenching. Sakura _hated_ to work with him?

But that wasn't the reality. That was just . . . just some perverse way things could have gone differently.

"I don't understand," he whispered. "Why're you showin' me this, Fip? I thought we were friends. Or something like that at least. I didn't . . ."

Fip jumped off the pillow, the robe trailing behind him. He made himself as large as he could and put a paw on Naruto's shoulder, a cloud of tobacco smell surrounding him.

"Oook."

A monstrous creak went through the hall. Then the rattling of chains followed, as if a gate was being pulled up. The two doors sunk into the ground.

Naruto peered up at Fip. "'s over now?"

But what he saw in Fip's eyes told him a different story. Compassion and sympathy, both however tied to an iron thread of resolve. And Naruto _knew_ he'd seen that look before. Because he remembered that Jiji had always worn it when he talked to people who jeered at him or sent him dirty looks when he was younger. To him it had all sounded so unfair back then. Why did _they_ get sympathy for being mean to him? And later, as he came to know a bit more of Konoha's history and their loss, why was it always _him_ they tried to alleviate their pain with?

Only after he'd learned the bitter truth, had all the pieces on the table, did that look make some sense to him. And it was still unfair, of course, but now he understood at least, and that made it a lot easier to bear.

And now, too, he wished to understand. Because that look meant there was something he didn't know, and that something was important.

He'd always trusted his gut feeling. This time would be no different.

Naruto slapped both of his cheeks. The sting brought the world, or at least this strange part of it, into sharp focus. "Keep'n it together here, Fip, don't you worry. Just . . ."—he thought, then shook his head—" . . . nothing. I'm ready when you are."

Fip patted Naruto's shoulder. He seemed proud. Then he clapped twice.

More chains creaked. Out of the floor rose two more doors.

Naruto winced, then steeled himself. He had no clue why all this was happening, but he trusted that look and he had a feeling in his gut that told him this was important. So he'd do it, because he was Uzumaki Naruto, and in his dictionary, _giving up_ was placed right next to a picture of a large cross with the words 'Nope'.

"This one first, right?" he said in front of the right door.

Fip nodded and Naruto entered.

Again, a stream of colors spat him out into a scene he remembered vividly because nightmares had made it impossible to forget.

The smell of burnt wood. Incense sticks. The sniffling of a crowd. All of those mingling around the portrait of the Hokage now that the pyre had done its job. He heard Konohamaru's bawling, Iruka's soothing words, and saw Kurenai taking Asuma's hand gently into her own. He saw the advisors with worried looks. Even in their age-crusted faces he found the sadness of having lost a life-long friend.

Kakashi's hand lay heavy on his head.

He felt . . . at fault, because he was a Jinchūriki, and weren't those supposed to be strong enough to lay waste to whole continents?

— _The Yondaime chose you, Naruto_ , the Hokage had told him once, _because he knew there was no one better to guard the Kyuubi, no one with greater strength or a stronger soul in all of Konoha._

— _That makes no sense, Jiji. How could he have known this? He didn't know me, did he? I mean, I wasn't much to look at, was I, bein' a baby and all that._

— _Sometimes we are blind to our own strengths. And let me assure you that in all those years since then I've not once been tempted to doubt the call he made. You've grown into a remarkable young man, Naruto, never let anyone tell you any different._

— _Jiji . . ._

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, but the smell of incense couldn't be blocked out as easily as sight.

No one with greater strength? Now, just as back then, he wondered where that confidence came from.

If only during the invasion he had—

He was before Fip once more.

"Oook . . ." said Fip.

"I know . . ." said Naruto.

He did not know what would await him behind the left door this time, but given what had happened before, he knew at least that he wouldn't like it.

"Do I really have to?" he asked, hand hovering close to the door.

"Oook!"

"That important?"

"Oook!"

So he opened that door as well, hoping it would be the last because he didn't know how long he'd still be able to stand this.

The scenery switched. He was in an office again. Behind the desk, however, sat not Tsunade but the Sandaime.

On the opposite side of the desk Naruto saw a version of himself, eyes red, dark scythes underneath them. He wore a Chūnin vest.

"It fits you well, Naruto," said Hiruzen. He wasn't smiling. His face tired and drawn in sorrow. "And," he went on, "you have my gratitude. I am still not clear how you managed to break the barrier, but without your intervention I likely would be dead by now."

The Chūnin-Naruto nodded woodenly.

Outside, a bell chimed. Besides that, a solemn silence settled on them that was only broken when, a minute later, the old man rose from his chair with a sigh.

"It is nearly starting," he said. "I suppose it is time for us to go."

Then Naruto found himself at the funeral again, standing in a row with Kakashi as the Sandaime spoke.

" . . . they were heroes," he said, "and for their sacrifice they shall never be forgotten."

Behind the Hokage stood massive wooden boards, pinned to them all manners of photographs and pictures, drawings from refrigerators, love letters, mementos and chains hanging from small nails, paraphernalia of the living, of that which made up a person, or part of it.

"We will, in due time," said the Sandaime, "erect a monument for all of them. Until then I ask you to pay your respects here. Always remember, they gave their all so that we may live on, and carry forward what it means to be alive. And in that spirit _we_ should take the challenges ahead. That, too, is part of remembering them. And that, too, is how we honor the fallen."

Afterwards the crowd went over to the boards. Naruto, observing them, let himself be swept up by their grief. And carried forward to the boards his eyes soon widened. Up close, the scale of what had happened sunk in.

He had thought that several of the pictures were for one person; now he noticed that each showed a different face.

Looking over to the Sandaime, he saw the old man stare at a set of pictures.

Naruto didn't want to see, didn't want to know. He had already made up his mind that this wasn't . . . that this couldn't—

But as though he had no control over his body, he walked over to the Sandaime and looked at the pictures, and found the smiling face of Konohamaru, goggles askew, brown hair entirely uncombed; and a few pictures farther left, of Udon, wiping his glasses with a tablecloth, looking simultaneously concentrated on his task and caught because he knew he'd just landed in a picture; and directly below, of Asuma and Kurenai, both in civilian garb at a kitchen table, looking far too smitten with each other to belong to the same group of practiced killers that wore the title Jōnin. And on it went, familiar face after familiar face, until Naruto noticed from the corners of his eyes a shade of pink.

Mechanically he turned to the picture and found Sakura's face smile back at him, a younger picture of her, before she took on the mantle of a kunoichi, with a bow in her hair and a one arm slung around another person outside the cut-off picture.

Words failed him. Thoughts and gut feeling did too. He just stood staring at the photo, tracing each strand of her hair with his eyes, feeling numb.

 _Sakura . . ._

Then it all turned black and he suddenly knelt on the floor before Fip, blinking wildly to keep tears out of his eyes. But the marble floor was already blurring to an indistinct gray and he knew he'd failed to keep composure.

He heard Fip shuffle away with the robe. A door closed behind him, then he was left alone as the two gates sunk back into the ground under the death rattle of a million chains.

Dead. All dead? How could he have let that happen? In any reality?

He smashed his fist against the floor. Again and again, until it hurt. That was the real problem, wasn't it? He _knew_ how it had happened. In both cases. He'd acted differently. He'd left Sasuke and Sakura with the Ichibi to save the old man, and that cost so many people their lives just remembering those massive wooden boards made him cramp up.

Naruto slumped, then rolled on his back, looking up at the dark ceiling, feeling hot tears streak down his face.

And it set in, slowly, that if those were the alternatives to how he'd acted in reality, then he'd never want to go that route. Then, no matter how much it hurt, he'd always take the same steps.

It was so unfair he wanted to scream. But ultimately he was as human, was as vulnerable and unable to do everything at once as everyone else, despite the Bijū in his gut.

Perhaps it wasn't the problem so much that the villagers considered him something other than human, but that secretly he too had started to see himself as something different. And the truth, impersonal, cold, had stared back at him from a thousand happy faces on that wooden board.

He couldn't ever predict what would happen. Naruto wished there was a way to tell, but he had no idea of the future. _All_ he could do was to take every moment as it came, and decide what was best, and hope that the decisions he made were the right ones.

He could become stronger and faster, and try to save as many people as possible. But in the end, he wouldn't always be able to save everyone, and that—

His thoughts screeched to a halt. He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling.

That was such a defeatist attitude, no Uzumaki in any dimension of reality would ever entertain it for longer than a few seconds.

Lying on his back he held up his fist to the top of the room. If there was something like a ceiling that meant he couldn't save everyone, then he'd simply have to smash through it. If being the strongest and the fastest wasn't enough, then he'd have to become even stronger and faster than that.

Impossible had always been a word that tasted sour to him.

Without hesitation, Naruto jumped to his feet. This, whatever this was, had never been about showing him his limitations. What kind of silly stuff would that have been? Limitations were for people who believed in them.

No, he thought, as two gates rattled their way up a third time, this was about regret and how he'd kick its dainty ass.

How had the alternate-reality Hokage phrased it?

 _They gave their all so that we may live on, and carry forward what it means to be alive. And in that spirit we should take the challenges ahead. That, too, is part of remembering them. And that, too, is how we honor the fallen._

Such a Jiji-thing to say. And for the first time in two years Naruto felt his lips twitch their way into a smile as he remembered the old man.

The Sandaime had made it his mission to be a protector for as long as he'd been among the living.

And rather than regret what happened, what Naruto would do was to carry on that spirit. To remember and honor the old man the only way he knew how.

 _You'll see, old man. 's all goin' to be fine. I'll make sure Konoha keeps standing._

Fip shuffled back into the room just as the two gates stopped their ascent.

Naruto grinned at him, then walked through the right gate without hesitation.

* * *

When Naruto came to, he was confronted with the sight of the Kyuubi pressing its snout against the bars.

"What happened, host?"

"How long I've been out?" said Naruto.

"Two minutes or thereabout," said the Kyuubi.

"You know what did that?"

The Kyuubi pulled its snout away and made a ponderous expression. "I am not sure what exactly you experienced, host, but the synergy between the substance you imbibed and my chakra was incredibly potent. It would not surprise me if your chakra had been felt across the whole island."

"You feeling alright?" said Naruto.

"The cage is feeding my claustrophobia."

"Claustrowhat?"

"It's too cramped in here."

Naruto laughed. "Forget it."

"Can't fault a fox for trying," said the Kyuubi with a sigh. "But I'm more clearheaded than half an hour ago. Still influenced but not as easily . . . entranced." The rough, growl-like voice took on a scientific hue. "It's an interesting phenomenon. I think the synergy, aside from knocking you out, exhausted a lot of the substance's energy. I suppose there's still a few waves coming but it's way past its peak now."

"So we're good?"

"Seems that way, host. I feel remarkable right now. In fact, I have an idea."

"Shoot."

The Kyuubi cocked its head. "Why don't you explore the swamp, host? Fulfilling your mission seems just in reach."

"Capital idea! Let's do that . . ."

Silence in which both stared at each other.

Then Naruto said, "Though I'm not sure how to leave here."

"Well, how did you get in?" asked the Kyuubi.

"Erm . . . not sure. Just kind of happened."

* * *

With some experimenting behind him, Naruto returned to the outside world, noticing first of all the slimy feeling all over his face, which was owed to the fact that he lay face-first in muck.

He climbed to his feet with an embarrassed laugh.

The trees and bushes still waved back at him but not as strongly as before.

The Kyuubi was right. He'd become more clear headed, too.

 _Well, then_ , he thought, _let's see if we can't find that swamp maker_.

Laughter held him back. Not because he was so embarrassed that laughter would freeze him to the spot—the Academy had been a marvelous training tool in that regard—but because the laughter had that certain quality about it that catapulted you right across the state of being nervous towards actual fear.

Naruto turned. Standing a few feet away were Orochimaru, Sasuke, and the kunoichi.

"I am surprised to actually find you here alone, Naruto-kun," said Orochimaru. "I expected one of Jiraiya's traps, but if it is, it turns out to be remarkably ineffective."

Naruto ignored him. His eyes were fixed on Sasuke.

"Sasuke . . . "

Sasuke grunted. "Naruto."

"Orochimaru-sama," Adder said. "If Jiraiya really is not here right now, we should apprehend the Jinchūriki. It should pose no problem for the three of us. I am sure he will yield interesting results in some of your more . . . exotic tests."

"True enough, my dear. Jiraiya is on his way I suppose, but then, I doubt this will take long."

 _Oi,_ _Kyuubi_ , thought Naruto, _this isn't lookin' too good, is it?_

—You can say that again, host. Go full tilt and try to get away, I'll help you.

 _Is this another one of those 'Can't fault a fox for trying' moments?_

—You've got a better idea?

 _Not really_ , thought Naruto.

—Then stop complaining. We can still synergize well enough.

 _Meaning?_

—Let's blast them to bits and get the hell away from here.

 _Done._

Again there was a dance of red and silver inside him, just that this time the blue chakra was not content to remain an observer. The really passionate affairs were always those involving three people willing to go at it.

Feeling his expression grow feral, Naruto grinned at the group. "Come'n get me then, Sasuke-chan. I'll not make it easy for ya."

Then the galvanizing feeling inside him broke free. Red chakra surged through his Tenketsu, blasting them open with force. The red cloak manifested, then expanded, grew some more—

Sasuke and Orochimaru shot forward, just as the third tail exploded out of the red cloak.

When they were close Naruto, feeling the fourth tail appear, screamed into their faces, sending them skidding back.

The kunoichi jumped at him from behind, but one of his tails batted her away.

"This is getting interesting," said Orochimaru. "But sadly I have no time for games right now."

Orochimaru smiled, then vanished. In this state Naruto could track him with his eyes however, and noticed him form a seal sequence that he remembered distantly from the Forest of Death.

—Quick, the fifth!

 _I won't be able to hold it!_ thought Naruto, frantically keeping his primal instincts at bay. _'s hard enough already!_

—It'll work. Trust me.

Orochimaru appeared close to Naruto, each finger glowing a lurid purple. All five of them on collision course with his stomach.

Gut. Decision. No regrets.

 _Oh shit_ , thought Naruto. _Let's go! Hit me!_

—Will do.

Under a shockwave that threw Orochimaru right back into Sasuke, the fifth tail shot out of the cloak. It swayed behind Naruto, who felt as if his brain was liquefying from the animalistic, red pressure on it.

Then the silver color in his mind went to work, weaving and forming, expanding his mind to the shape of a pretzel, the left circle holding his primal instincts, the right carrying forward his rationality and humanity. All of it tied together by the silver line that freely adhered to Jiraiya's Rule of Love #38: in a three-way, with a woman in the middle there's some leeway.

And besides that, it felt really, _really_ satisfying when Naruto leapt forward, propelled by the power of five tails, and smashed his fist right into Orochimaru's pasty face with enough force to send the Sannin bouncing across the muddy floor.

* * *

Swamps weren't made for Bijū. In fact, few landscapes could, at the biannual union meeting, say of themselves that they were well equipped to handle the occasional visit of seeming-supernatural, certainly super-destructive forces.

Naruto wasn't a full Bijū. That might have reassured the swamp on an abstract basis, had Naruto not been inside it at that very moment. In truth though, whether he was a full Bijū or not made no difference. It was all just a matter of degree.

Had Naruto sported nine tails, the swamp would have had no time to write its will before being consigned to oblivion. As it stood, with Naruto at five tails the swamp still needed to hurry up the swing of its pen, because it _was_ disintegrating from the forces colliding inside it, just not as instantaneously.

It was, in any case, not easy to decide what was worse: the carpet of red chakra that brought the water to a boiling temperature and would leave the ground charred and unusable for decades to come; or the searing flames that Orochimaru and Sasuke torched whole areas with—areas from which more often than not came short bursts of frantic animal screams before dying out abruptly, heralding the stench of burnt fur.

Balancing on his haunches, a low growl bubbled up in Naruto's throat. Sasuke stood some distance across him, shirt ripped and singed.

 _Rustling._

A summoned snake the size of a building broke through the shrubbery: maw wide open, fangs dripping with venom.

Naruto took hold of each side of the snake's maw and jerked his hands in different directions. With a slick, sickening sound he ripped the snake in two halves. Crying out, he whirled around in a circle, spinning the snake halves with him, before loosening his grip and letting them fly directly into the attacking kunoichi.

With a shout Adder went down. The snake halves puffed away.

He looked back to Sasuke, face split by a grin.

"How's that for starters?" he growled, the water sizzling under his feet. The environment bending to his power was an interesting sensation. So much so that it was almost enough to make him fear he'd come to like it.

Not the best quality to have for a Jinchūriki.

"You're an idiot," said Sasuke.

Right now, the silver color kept Naruto's sanity separated from the mess of primal emotions. Yet the careless stance, the stoic face, the matter-of-fact voice that belonged as much, if not more so, to Sasuke than the name Uchiha, made it hard to keep control. There were some things that transcended partisanship between heart and brain, and to slug Sasuke a good one—before he'd be dragged back to Konoha—stood somewhere at the top if you were to make a list, just slightly below Ramen.

Naruto's grin turned dangerous. The five tails behind him sped up their swaying. "Ya? Lemme get over there, and I'll show you what's what."

Sasuke looked back at him with a blank face. Then he shook his head.

"You really _are_ an idiot."

"I'll give you—"

Mid-word, Orochimaru landed in front of him, purple-fingered like a demented child that had painted with blueberries instead of eating them. And Naruto had a second to realize that yes, he really sucked at situational awareness, before his stomach exploded in a world of pain.

* * *

Sasuke felt conflicted. Seeing Naruto slung over Adder's shoulder, groaning, he felt that this wasn't how things should be. His mission had always been to murder Itachi in several creative ways, some of which included the process of learning methods to bring him back to life so the procedure could be started all over again. Cruelty towards his former classmates, even if only by association, had never factored into this train of thought when they weren't actively hindering him.

Orochimaru bringing Naruto to his hideout and experimenting on him kicked the concept of his old teammate suffering from a theoretical perspective into an actual situation. Sasuke was not surprised to find his stomach flutter at that thought.

He found Naruto annoying. He found him to be a well-meaning menace to society in a clownish outfit, who was absurd precisely because his annoying quality was well-intended. He found Naruto to be a fool, at times weak—even if he had his moments—and so close to brain-dead as to practically make no difference if you were to call him a mental vegetable. Sasuke also thought that Naruto was persistent and that, if you squinted hard enough, you could find something in his whole bearing that had the ability to stupefy you out of whatever manic spiral you'd found yourself in. Their ridiculous time together as Team Seven bore this point out quite clearly, no matter how much a part of him tried to rebel against it.

The point was, given all he thought about Naruto, he did not want him on one of Orochimaru's slabs for experimental purposes.

He wanted Naruto out of his field of vision, far away so as not to be infected with the sheer stupidity that surrounded the blond at times; or close by, engaged in a fight in which Sasuke would demonstrate his superiority once more. In none of those thoughts did Naruto feature anywhere close to the Snake Sannin.

As they jumped through the swamp, Sasuke knew though that he couldn't make that a talking point with Orochimaru. Which left him with only one solution: into his upcoming plans he somehow had to integrate some sort of prison break for Naruto, without Orochimaru finding out of course.

He shot Naruto's groaning body a petulant glare. Of course the moment Naruto involved himself in anything it'd be more work for him. That seemed to be a law of nature in general.

Sasuke pushed himself away from the next branch, all around him the rustle of wind messing up the shrubbery, of hisses and grunts, angry buzzing and aggressive chirps. Was it just him or did the swamp seem to be more active?

Adder stopped, Naruto letting out a painful _oof_ from on top of her shoulders.

"Don't you think there is something wrong, Orochimaru-sama? The swamp seems . . . agitated."

Orochimaru nodded. "I noticed that as well." He peered curiously at Sasuke. "Have you toyed with the dials of the generator?"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"

"You have a rebellious mind at times, Sasuke. A mind that likes both, to wander and wonder."

"Word games now?" Inside, Sasuke felt his heart thump harder. Rebellious mind indeed. Sometimes he asked himself how much Orochimaru really knew of his, or anyone's ambitions. If the man was really _that_ informed, or if he was just a perfect reader of character and an expert bluffer. Or, worse and more likely, if he was both.

"Games keep the mind fresh, Sasuke. It is good to entertain yourself once in a while with one." Orochimaru's eyes squinted their way into a cold smile. It was the glittering eye-smile of a mad butcher whose lips had no intention to follow suit, but whose facial expression itself made clear that he enjoyed his job.

"I have no time for games, Orochimaru. Killing Itachi is all I need."

"Of course," said Orochimaru. "And you will, in due time. But I believe we have prolonged our stay long enough. Let's move, shall we?"

 _Pa-ching_ , went the black stone on the Go board. But even if Orochimaru had let that issue go, Sasuke couldn't help wonder if his moves weren't transparent to the Snake Sannin. He held no illusions that he, too, was a game for the man. Just that this game was important to Orochimaru, and the Snake Sannin tended to play a lot harder when it mattered.

"Hn."

"Oook!"

The deep grunt stopped Sasuke in his tracks. For a short moment the rustling of the bushes and the leaves intensified.

With an outcry, the swamp exploded into action.

Out of the bushes shot snakes, none of them a summon, all of them as big as one. Out of the trees flew birds, their beaks open for a last thrill of majestic outrage before they snapped them shut, aligned themselves with their target, descending like a rain of senbon. The noise of water being driven before them, alligators emerged from the swamp, shaking off their muck before speeding forward. And from behind the bushes and trees, Sasuke still heard a pounding, as if someone beat a set of drums that came closer each second.

 _They're on the warpath_ , Sasuke thought, _and that path runs right through us._

He glanced at Naruto, quite convinced that the blond had something to do with this.

Near them, the source of the grunt that had set all this motion. A monkey with a fuzzy patch of hair on his chin that could well be called a beard at this size. Because that was the thing. Sasuke recognized the monkey. Size-wise though, it went halfway up a tree now. Its brown eyes glittered with intelligence and fury.

The monkey pounded its massive paws on the floor, throwing up mud. Behind him the bushes parted, several more of its kind appearing from the trees.

Sasuke looked at Naruto once more. How could that blockhead have managed to make this whole place his friend within a few days?

He shook his head. It did not matter. This was _exactly_ the kind of everyday well-meant insanity that had played, besides Itachi, a role in leaving Konoha.

Sasuke drew his sword. Games were good for your mental health? Well, if the swamp wished to play, he'd accommodate it.

* * *

Fip stood in a puddle of blood. A puddle that to him appeared to be the whole swamp as he knew it. Bits and pieces of animals bopped up and down in the red water. The occasional feather was carried past like driftwood, a lonely testament to the fragility of life.

Fur soaked and grimy, Fip found himself alone among enemies. He faced a range of emotions he had not chanced upon before: all circling around despair and hopelessness. Not even the time fighting those scorpions had felt as bad.

Fip looked over to Naruto, who lay in the mud, holding his stomach. Close by stood the trio of humans, cleaning their weapons with what remained of Fip's family. Cold rage bubbled up inside him. He felt his lips pull back into a hateful sneer. Suddenly there was too much energy in his arms, too much potential for destruction that needed release. He slammed them on the ground. Muck splayed about, spattering on his face. Again and again, stepping on the same place all the while, each breath carrying the wish for violence.

And in this moment, seeing the broken bodies of his tribe, the mangled pieces of animal flesh from his uprising empire, Fip felt a crucial part in his mind revert back to a prior, more known state.

Blood swelled about his legs. Like a candle burning through, the lights in his mind dimmed. A last whisper of, 'this could be dangerous,' then all went dark and Fip gave himself up to every fiber in his body that screamed for bloody murder.

He smashed his fists a last time into the muck, then pounded forward.

And found himself a second later high in the air. He struggled against the arms holding him, but soothing words in his ear slowed his effort.

Confused Fip turned, and was suddenly nose to nose with a pink-haired monkey. Memories jolted awake. Someone had brought a second candle.

He stared at Sakura's face, then back at the carnage below. There, Jiraiya stood across Orochimaru, Sasuke and the kunoichi. Behind him, a small frog raced through complicated hand seals, Naruto at its webbed feet.

"I'm sorry we weren't here earlier," said Sakura.

"Oook . . . "

"I know . . . but Jiraiya-sama will take care of them. He might not look it, but he's deadly. I'll have to leave you here though. Three on one isn't really fair."

Then she let go of him and jumped down, landing gracefully next to Jiraiya.

"Take the kunoichi," Fip heard him say, then all his senses went haywire as Jiraiya and the snake went at each other, releasing a massive amount of energy. And Fip decided that _this_ was definitely not a battle he could involve himself in without ending like his relatives and subjects.

* * *

When Naruto opened his eyes he still thought he was hallucinating. A small, super-decrepit toad sat on his thighs and rubbed his belly. The toad had a goatee and murmured words as it kept moving its webbed hands up and down his stomach.

"What . . ."

"No time to chat, young man. I'm inna hurry! Ma made dinner, can't let her wait too long," the toad told him. "Jelly-worm stew. I say, most delicious dinner anywhere." He gave Naruto's stomach a good slap. "There, that should do it for now. Didn't get everythin' but there should be no pain now? You still feelin' any pain?"

Surprisingly he didn't. "No," Naruto said, "but—"

"Well that's good then, isn't it? Because I'm mighty hungry. Now you keep yourself alive, young man, and I'm sure we'll see each other again."

The toad winked at him.

"Wait, who—"

Then it puffed away.

Naruto put off wondering and observed his surroundings instead. He heard and sensed Jiraiya and Orochimaru going at it in another part of the swamp; Sakura, too, was somewhere else, duking it out with the kunoichi.

His eyes homed in on Sasuke, who stood leaning against a tree.

Naruto scrambled to his feet.

"Sasuke," he said.

" . . . this is getting old," said Sasuke.

"You'll come back with me?"

"No."

The look on Sasuke's face was blank and Naruto scrunched up his brows. "Why'd you let him heal me?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, then pushed himself away from the tree. "Don't think too much about it, you'll hurt yourself, stupid," he said, pulling his blade out of its sheath.

Naruto lowered himself into a stance. "Fighting then?"

"I thought the sword made that rather obvious."

It did. It was sharp and glinted in the sunlight filtering through the canopy. It was also wielded by Sasuke. And even if his mouth liked to say otherwise, Naruto knew what Sasuke could do with a weapon like that.

But where the hell had it all gone wrong to end like this anyway? Brief moments of Team Seven's history flitted through his head: them eating fish together, training under Kakashi, fighting Zabuza, the Chūnin Exams, the Valley of the End.

Naruto had the impulse to shut his eyes. He kept them open by force.

It hurt. More than he'd like to admit. But goddamn it, if the past hours had taught him anything, then that it doesn't do to close your eyes before reality, and playing the regret game brought you nothing good either.

He clenched his fists and bounced lightly on his feet. _All there's to it, Uzumaki_ , he thought, _is to go at it moment by moment and doin' the best you can._

And right then that best was making Sasuke see logic through the universal language of fist-to-face.

So, in the name of people everywhere in the world who'd liked nothing more than to give a smug face a good pounding, Naruto dashed forward, jumped up, both fists intertwined and ready to bring the pain on his descent.

On the way down, he reached deep inside himself.

 _Here we go, Kyuubi! Let's have it!_

* * *

Admittedly, at first Sasuke had no real interest in fighting Naruto. He just wanted them to go their separate ways, and have the damn fool far away from Orochimaru. Everything else was secondary; hence why he let the toad take care of the blond.

But . . . well, now that Naruto was up, he couldn't really resist. And while one part of him wanted the blond away, the much bigger part desired a contest.

So he had drawn his sword, fully intending to keep calm and collected. Naruto should give him a good fight. Nothing ridiculous like the Valley of the End though, with total destruction everywhere. He wasn't quite interested in a fight of that scale. Truthfully, just Taijutsu would be enough for him right then. He'd always been good at it, and after getting slapped around by Jiraiya last night he need some reassurance.

Thus it came as somewhat of a surprise when he registered Naruto descending on him, tendrils of red wreathing his fists.

Immediately his prior aim went out of the window. Naruto wanted it like that? Well, he'd get it.

The Kyuubi was strong, but the Cursed Seal was more than enough to—

Pain lanced through his shoulder. Sasuke stayed as pale as he'd always been, no protective wings growing from his back.

Right . . . he had forgotten about that.

Inside, Sasuke braced himself for a world of hurt as Naruto's fists closed in.

Only for Naruto to gargle a scream of pain himself, and then sail past him, tumbling to the ground.

Jumping back, Sasuke brought distance between them. His eyes narrowed. The Cursed Seal didn't work thanks to Jiraiya, but even if that toad had healed Naruto, using the Kyuubi seemed equally impossible. At least that's what he got from Naruto's angry mutterings as the blond pulled himself to his feet.

They looked at each other.

"That toad is a hack," said Sasuke. "It fits you."

Naruto frowned at him. "Don't need it to beat you, Sasuke. Don't think I didn't see you flinch."

Sasuke smirked. "I haven't seen much yet of you either."

"Well, then keep your eyes open wide, idiot!"

Ah. That annoying cross-seal. Within a second, the whole swamp, as far as Sasuke could see, was jammed solid with clones.

The mills in Sasuke's eyes spun into existence just as every clone evaporated into a cloud of white smoke.

Another cry from Naruto.

Sasuke looked at the original. Suddenly, every nerve in his Sharingan burned as he laid eyes on that strange mix of silver, red and blue. He tried to endure, but the combination of colors became so blinding that he had to squeeze his eyes shut, deactivating his Sharingan in the process.

When he opened his eyes again, his world was blurry. He wiped his tears away, glaring across at Naruto, who stood holding his stomach with a dismayed expression on his face.

Again, they looked at each other.

Forget not wanting to reshape the landscape in their fight, Sasuke thought. He'd be glad to actually have a fight at all with how things were going.

Naruto seemed to be of the same opinion. "You know what," he said, cracking his knuckles, "this is stupid. I'm just goin' to bash your head on the floor until you're good again and back with us."

Sasuke pondered this for a second. His ponderings went like this: He could, theoretically, still use techniques to fry Naruto.

However, he liked hitting him with his bare fists much more.

In the end, what he wanted out of this fight was to work out his frustrations about Jiraiya and this ridiculous mission Orochimaru had gotten him involved in. Nothing more. Sheathing his sword, he fell into a light jog.

Naruto did the same, both gaining speed as they went.

Knuckle to knuckle sounded just fine to Sasuke.

* * *

The training of a Sannin awarded your punching power miraculous prowess. Nowhere did that become clearer than with Sakura, Naruto knew. However, while Tsunade represented the ultimate authority when it came to braining people, Jiraiya and Orochimaru were no slouches either. Personally he'd thought the old pervert had done a bang up job on teaching him how to deliver juicy knuckle sandwiches while trying to dodge the other side doing the same.

Too bad, then, that Jiraiya's and Orochimaru's rivalry extended to their students as well in that regard.

Ducking under a wide hook, arms swinging around like noodles, Naruto noticed Sasuke's knee too late. It smashed into his stomach, propping him up like a good pillow before he arced away from Sasuke. The sky was green with trees.

With a loud splash Naruto landed on his back. Laboriously he rose up, feeling the swamp fuse with him, all the yucky things on offer all over his body. He shivered as mud trailed down his hair, onto his neck, moving along his spine.

"Screw you, Sasuke," he said.

Sasuke glared at him from a swollen eye, the rest of his face a mash of bruises, cuts, and rainbow colors. His left arm hung limply at his side. There was a slight bend to his knee.

Naruto liked to remember the punches that did this as his crowning achievements of the day.

Sadly he had no monopoly on those, because in his neck of the woods, both arms hung like wet towels down his sides. Not the best state to slug it out with. The left arm was especially painful because he'd tripped and had landed right into Sasuke's bone-breaking hold. A bad place to be in, even if only temporarily.

He panted heavily, exhausted from the day and nearing the limit of what he could do without the Kyuubi and chakra.

Why were they fighting again?

Right, because Sasuke was a blockheaded bastard.

Little white spots danced before Naruto's eyes as he trudged towards Sasuke. Earlier they'd been all kinds of acrobatic. Now the sad reality set in and he felt as if he was pushing a walker down Elder-Street in Konoha.

Just without falling down or tripping this time. That was important. He'd been just so damn overexcited when they started.

They met halfway, two spent Chūnin that one day surely would have the potential to eviscerate whole continents.

Naruto leaned in, waiting for a good opportunity.

Sasuke feinted to the left, at a speed that made you wonder whether _he_ actually was the one who had signed with Tsunade's slugs.

Ah, this was just stupid. Naruto threw caution to the wind and let loose a kick right to Sasuke's face. He felt himself connect, then knuckles drilled into his ribs and Naruto let out a loud _ooff_ as he staggered away and fell on his back.

Urgh. He didn't have the strength to get up again; even if he really wanted to because the swamp was about to make love to him right then, with all the appropriate slick noises. Whatever that goatee-toad had done, the Kyuubi wasn't doing anything much either.

"You suck," said Naruto, turning his head to at least direct a reproachful stare at Sasuke.

Sasuke lay a few feet away, his chest going up and down like bellows. "Shut up, idiot."

Silence.

Then, between breaths, Naruto said, "I don't get it, Sasuke . . ."

"I'm not surprised."

"Then tell me?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "No."

"'s about Itachi, I get _that_. But why'd you have to leave? Why'd you have to fight us because of that? You want us dead too?"

"All I want is Itachi's head. It's never been about you two."

Naruto encountered that answer with the skepticism of someone who'd just been pounded into the mud. "Bang up job you did, of showin' that to us."

"What did you expect?" said Sasuke. " _He_ is watching and you bungle through the swamp like the moron you are."

Naruto had the decency to feel heat rise to his cheeks. "'s difficult. I had . . . other problems."

"I noticed," said Sasuke, staring at the canopy. "So stupid . . ."

"Say that again, I dare ya."

"I said you're an idiot."

Naruto weakly lifted his fist. "Yeah? Well, you're a selfish idiot."

Silence. Again. Well, not entirely. The earth-shattering echoes of their teachers going at it were hard to miss. The occasional tremble he attributed to Sakura though. He'd made intimate observations of her technique after all.

This was strangely nice and peaceful though. Familiar, in a word. For a second Naruto grinned at the branches above, then he resumed glaring at Sasuke.

"The moment I can move again, I'll kick your ass back to Konoha."

Sasuke snorted. "That won't happen. I think the fights are winding down. The chakra saturation's getting lower."

"Just you wait and see. I don't care 'bout their fights. I'll find you again if I need to, and then I'll kick your ass."

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't find me again."

"Why shouldn't I? You belong to Konoha. Shitty as you are."

Sasuke groaned. "You're so damn thick, idiot." He moved, then winced. "Probably why hitting your head hurts so much."

"Then tell me why I shouldn't find you." Naruto gestured at himself and the vague direction of Sakura's fight. "Why's this not enough for you to come back? Why—"

"Because Itachi is everything I can think of," said Sasuke. "I can't allow myself to be distracted. This, whatever _this_ is, has to come after that."

"We could help you, Sakura and me and Kakashi. Slammin' Itachi together, all of Team Seven."

"No!" The shout startled Naruto. If Sasuke hadn't killed all the birds, some of them would have fled their trees, cawing nervously and spreading in different directions. Much quieter, Sasuke went on, "No . . . Itachi's my duty. Mine alone. You stay away from him."

"'s no good, Sasuke. We could . . . "

"l won't say this again, idiot. Don't come searching for me. Once I'm done with Itachi I'll be free to do whatever I want."

"That so? We're supposed to do nothing?"

"Yes."

"Orochimaru wants your body!" said Naruto. "It's like one of those demon possession stories. The creepy ones."

"They're all creepy," said Sasuke. Then he shrugged as much as he could in the mud. "Let him try."

Naruto stared at him.

"What?" said Sasuke. "Did you think I'd just give my body to him so _he_ can kill Itachi with it? That's so stupid, of course it comes from you."

"Say that again, see what'll happen. I'll let you taste a nice swamp sandwich if you do."

To demonstrate that his threat was not idle, Naruto threw a handful of muck at Sasuke. The projectile fell short halfway to him and landed with a wet noise on the ground. Naruto let his hand fall down, half in mental defeat, half as the consequence of having no strength.

He turned over his mind for another insult to fling, when the sudden pounding of a large moving animal stopped him. A second later, Fip stormed out of the underbrush, hauling his massive body right at Sasuke.

"Stop!" Naruto shouted as Fip was about to let his fist taste some Uchiha. Or was it the other way around?

"Oook!"

Definitely not a friendly sound.

"What's he done to you?" Naruto asked.

Fip pointed at feathers and animal parts all around them, then at Sasuke.

"You're really a bastard, Sasuke, you know that?"

"They attacked me," said Sasuke. "I wasn't about to become animal food."

Fip lifted his arm higher and Naruto shook his head. "Don't."

"Oook!"

Naruto held up a finger. "Okay, but just once, hear me? He's mine."

Then, much like an anvil being thrown out of a window on the third floor, Fips fist crashed into Sasuke's stomach.

"Urghh!"

"Don't complain. You earned that one," said Naruto.

Sasuke groaned, his arms twitching up to hold his stomach. "Shut up. And call off that damn monkey . . ."

Now, most of the time, Naruto's head was a chaotic place. Clusters of neurons founded groups that more or less all marched to their own tunes, their ambitions vastly differing, in most cases even contradicting, each other. However, now and then his mind achieved a wondrous kind of unity, a brief moment in the space-time continuum when all neurons fired toward the same purpose.

That usually happened when he had an idea that he slapped the label "grand!" on.

Painting the Hokage Monument had been one such idea. Learning the Oroike no Jutsu another.

With a devilish smile he said, "I think it's just fair for Fip to get to play with you a bit more longishly."

Fip played his part. He made aggressive noises and stomped around Sasuke's body. He leaned in so close to his head that Sasuke must have been able to count the different hairs on his tongue.

It took about half a minute of that display before Sasuke asked, "What do you want? And if it's me coming back with you, forget it. I told you—"

"What's the matter with the swamp?"

"That's what you want to know?"

"Fip."

"Alright, alright, idiot. What do you want to know?"

Naruto pondered this carefully for about the quarter of a second. "'s not good for the island, the animals and all that. How do we get rid of it?"

Sasuke shrugged. "There's a place several miles from here. Center of the swamp. There's a door to an underground hideout with a generator dispersing chakra. Not sure if that gets rid of the swamp but it'll stop things growing like crazy."

"You heard that, Fip?" said Naruto.

Fip nodded.

"Wanna take care of it?"

"Oook."

"'s all yours. Probably what made you like that anyway. Plus . . . the cookies, I guess."

"Cookies?" asked Sasuke.

"Weird stuff. Doesn't matter," said Naruto.

They watched Fip leave. Silence encroached. Naruto wondered what he could say now. Sasuke wouldn't come home on his own, and Naruto had no strength to persuade him with his fists. They were at an conversational impasse—those awkward moments that stretched forever. You were always waiting for something to interrupt them, to bring relief from saying nothing. A buzzing mosquito would be good enough of a topic. Sasuke had likely killed all of those though.

" . . . you could write now and then," Naruto said eventually.

"Are you serious?"

"'s just to let us know the snake hasn't gotten you yet."

"That's ridiculous."

"That your new favorite word?"

"Shut up, idiot."

" . . . We miss you—"

A loud crash interrupted Naruto. Orochimaru came jumping through the trees. He landed right next to Sasuke. Jiraiya came next, half a second removed, touching down in front of Naruto. As expected, both of them looked just like before. Not one hair out of place, burnt, or touched. The same likely couldn't be said about the place they'd held their reunion at.

"Seems your student's a bit weak on his legs," said Jiraiya.

"It appears the same holds true for yours," said Orochimaru.

Sasuke and Naruto could only stare at each other through the space between the legs of these great men.

"Yours is clearly more demolished, Oro-chan."

"Age is getting to you, Jiraiya," said Orochimaru with a creepy laugh. "The sight of the Jinchūriki is vastly sorrier than of Sasuke."

The conversation stopped. The Sannin glared at each other with the hate of having spent decades on opposing sides.

"Next time, Jiraiya, I will not be as lenient," said Orochimaru.

"Right, tell that to my fist, Oro-chan."

With a dismissive noise rising in his throat, Orochimaru crouched next to Sasuke. A moment later the air around them distorted, like heat on hot cobbles. Earth welled up around their feet and pulled them under ground with a gargling sound.

"You're lettin' them get away?"

Jiraiya's lips worked their way into a strained smile. "If I'd be able to stop him that easily, things would've never gotten this far, Naruto."

"So . . . it's over now?"

"Not quite. I can sense Sakura on her way. She's close. And we still have to take care of the swamp."

"No trouble with the last part," said Naruto. "Got Fip on that."

"The monkey?"

"Just so," said Naruto. "Good fella, that one. Smacked Sasuke mightily."

Jiraiya hummed and sat down next to Naruto, ignoring the mud. "Now that's a story I've got to hear. Uchiha were always a bit too arrogant for my taste. A learning-enhancing hit ought to do him some good."

"Too true. He's just a whole different level of bastard."

And so it went. Somehow Naruto had the feeling that Orochimaru and Sasuke held a similar conversation right now, just exchanging the words bastard with insults of a different kind.

* * *

Fip muscled his way through a door. This was meant literally, as in his muscles expanded and shoved open the thick piece of metal standing between him and the chakra dispenser in a forceful fashion.

The swamp generator hummed. Light flickered. Garish and bright. Too bright. Fip neared the machine with various knobs and levers and a big, red button. A signal color, attracting his attention immediately.

Fip had only been among self-aware beings for a short while, but already he had an instinctual response to such a red button that went somewhat like this: Do Not Touch It.

Put another way: Do Touch If You Wish To Die.

His monkey features lifted into a brittle smile. So this was what had made him self-aware. How quick it all had gone. And this constant swirl of emotions inside him. All so different. All so powerful. All so contradictory in nature. Complicated. Yes, if he could talk better that would be the right word for them. Maddening also fit.

Fip knew exactly why humans were such strange creatures. Felt it with every breath in fact. How could they be anything else with all this . . . this insane _stuff_ inside them?

He wanted to end it. And yet he resisted that idea at the same time. Again. Contradictions.

His massive arm stopped halfway to the red button. It would probably do something bad to him as well, as long as he was in this place.

Did he care about that though?

He hesitated.

Then he lowered his arm. He couldn't. He wasn't sure why. He only knew that he didn't want to press that button.

"A wise decision, young one," came a rough voice from behind him.

Fip turned.

At the entrance to the underground bunker stood the biggest, meanest, most regal looking monkey Fip had ever seen. That giant also spread the strongest monkey reek he'd ever had the pleasure to smell—stench was a defining character trait of powerful monkeys after all.

Fip had wanted to be a king himself, but looking up at the light-framed body, he knew that never in a million years he would have reached such a level of royalty.

"Oook?"

"My name, young one, is Enma. I am the Monkey King."

Fip bowed his head in deference. "Oook . . ."

Enma laughed. "Do not be so formal, young one. Come, let us leave this place to the humans. I know them. They are capable."

Both monkeys left the facility in a content, knuckling way. Where the journey would lead him now, Fip did not know. But he had a feeling that someday he would fight again, side by side, with a strange human. And that, at that point, he would understand them, and himself, well enough to finally make some sense of this weird world.

* * *

"Now this is interesting," said Jiraiya.

He inspected the rapidly decomposing corpse of Adder that lay on the table in their room at the inn. The smell masked by another one of his Genjutsus. Sakura sat leaning against the wall, healing her wounds. Naruto snored happily, the day collecting its rent. Now and then he mumbled something about the Kyuubi being a fruit bat.

"What's interesting, Jiraiya-sama?"

Jiraiya looked at her. She was exhausted, and severely burnt in places, though the healing she used on herself was already working miracles. Tsunade's student indeed. She found Naruto and him two minutes after Orochimaru had left, the then seemingly alive body of the kunoichi slung over her shoulder. In a way she was the only one who had won her fight and accomplished her goal.

"It's a corpse," he said, picking up a bone-white arm.

"But I didn't kill her . . . "

"And technically you couldn't," said Jiraiya. "This woman's been dead for the last twenty-five years."

"Orochimaru animated her body?"

"More like gave her a twisted kind of life," he said. "The seal must have been something else. It's disintegrating even faster than her body though, so I won't be able to copy it in time." To his dismay Jiraiya noticed a mingling of horror and academic curiosity in his thought process. The seal must have been a work of art. Nothing else was expected from Orochimaru. And at the same time it was such a horrid thing to do . . .

"I'll seal her up so you can take her back to Konoha," he said eventually.

"For research?"

Jiraiya looked at her queerly. "For a proper burial."

"Oh. Why?"

"She's a Hyuuga. Main Branch."

Sakura goggled. "What? But—"

"Besides that, you said she fought with otherworldly grace. Fits exactly." Jiraiya leaned over the corpse again, feeling around the eyes. "No Byakugan though. The Hyuuga usually take them out before they bury their dead, so that's no surprise." Jiraiya hummed in his throat. "I wonder if Orochimaru tried to recreate it with an original body . . . I'll write up a report for you to take to Tsunade. She'll want to know about this."

Sakura couldn't do much more than nod.

"Good," said Jiraiya, satisfied with his inspections. "I'll take a look at what the mercenaries are doing now. At this time they should all loiter around in _The Finely Distilled Rose_. Keep an eye on our sleeping beauty, will you? He's always a bit confused when he wakes up."

Then he left the room, laughing all the way down the stairs. He had an inkling that most mercenaries had left Danube by now. Some research however, especially in a place like Lady Hyume's, never went amiss in the greater scheme of things.

* * *

The report that Jiraiya wrote Tsunade contained a lot of information. For the span of a few days a lot had happened after all.

The first part pertained to the official mission. The swamp and the generator they had disabled. The manifestations of chakra in the swamp-affected animals. The iron deposits Danube had found in its mountains and the mercenaries that tried to ingratiate themselves to the villagers. Likely some sort of war effort, sponsored by Orochimaru. Steel was always in high demand, no matter where you looked.

The second part, sealed with some complexity, concerned itself with Orochimaru, Sasuke, and the Hyuuga corpse.

The third part: Naruto's use of the Kyuubi up to the fifth tail; as well as his temporary alliance with the Bijū. Whatever had prompted this—some kind of cookie, of which no specimen had survived Naruto's savage fight against frustration—was important. If there existed a method to bring Bijū and Jinchūriki closer together, it had to be investigated.

The last part, sealed so that only Tsunade would ever know to unseal it: commentary about the observed social interactions between their students, as well as lascivious allusions towards what he and Tsunade could still get up to even if they weren't the youngest anymore. That last part would land him in a world of pain, but writing it down was well worth the trouble. To the bitter end, Jiraiya just couldn't resist a good sentence. And the more often it connected Tsunade with her bodily assets, the better.

"Here's the report," said Jiraiya, pushing a scroll into Sakura's waiting hand.

Sakura wore her official Chūnin vest. She stood ramrod straight and took the scroll with utmost professionalism.

"Thank you, Jiraiya-sama."

The three of them were in Kinzoku's port. Sakura would take the next ship back to the coast of the Elemental Countries. From there she'd start the long journey back to Konoha. One of Jiraiya's toads would accompany her, to make sure she had some help if she ran into trouble on the way.

Personally, he'd take Naruto to the beach some miles south of Kinzoku. There they'd have a grand time with cool drinks, training, a lot of sun, and the waves splashing about their ankles while they laughed about silly things and contemplated life. Man stuff. That's what they'd do. Man stuff. Some fishing. Some fighting. Now that Naruto was inducted, also a whole lot of boozing.

"So . . . " said Naruto, standing close to Sakura. "That's it, I suppose?"

"Seems like it," she said. She smiled at him. "But it's not too long now, is it? Jiraiya-sama said you'll come back to Konoha soon. And then we can set out to get Sasuke from that damn snake. Before his body's taken over . . . "

Naruto nodded. "That's about it, I say. Though I don't think he's going to give Orochimaru many openings when the time comes."

Sakura blinked. "How do you mean?"

"'s a gut feeling is all," said Naruto, grinning. "That bastard isn't going down without one hell of a fight."

Sakura nodded. Then she stepped forward, threw her arms around Naruto, and gave him a quick but hearty hug.

Naruto felt a nervous twitch in his stomach. Then he leaned in, thinking, _Nope, things went like they went, Uzumaki. Just take it from here._

"We'll make a big party when you're back in Konoha," she said, taking a step back.

"For sure," he said.

A moment later a horn sounded. Some sailor had blown it from the top mast of a large ship.

"That's my call," she said.

"Good journey," Jiraiya said. "And do send Tsunade-hime my warmest regards," he added with a lecherous smile.

Sakura narrowed her eyes, then sighed. "I will."

A last time Sakura waved at them, then she vanished onto the ship. Jiraiya and Naruto kept staring at it until it left the harbor and set sails.

"You didn't tell her about Sasuke?" asked Jiraiya after a while.

"Not exactly."

"Why?"

"She'd have much more of a problem with it, I think. Knowing he doesn't hate us and still bein' away."

Together they began moving away from the quay and toward the inner city, the bustling hubbub of an active market all around them.

"'s better now though," said Naruto. "Sasuke's not just some tool. He'll kick his brother's ass."

"I hope so. You shouldn't underestimate Orochimaru though."

"Yeah I know," said Naruto. He stopped in the middle of the street. For a moment Jiraiya was surprised by the way his eyes flashed with seriousness. "I want you to train me for real, old pervert," Naruto went on. "I know we've been doin' training. But's not enough, is it? And I know you've got lots more."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "Hurry much? I thought you're more confident in Sasuke now."

"Pff. He's not a tool, but he's stupid if he thinks I'll let him handle the snake on his own . . . Just need to be stronger, is all."

"Despite what he told you?"

Naruto let out a short laugh. "He can tell me much if the day's long, doesn't make it right though. He's just, what's the word, sociably challenged. Right."

Jiraiya didn't correct him. He did however adjust his own plans as they walked down the street. Maybe man stuff had to wait. Or if not wait, then at least change place from Kinzoku to somewhere else.

He looked at the pleasant morning sun.

Well, perhaps one or two days of vacation at the beach. And _then_ he'd try to remember if they could actually go fishing on Mount Myoboku.

"I wonder what happened to Fip," said Naruto. "I hope he's alright . . . "

"Don't worry," said Jiraiya. "I've a feeling that he's having quite some interesting experiences right about now . . . By the way, anything new from the Kyuubi?"

"Same old," Naruto said, shrugging. "It's mighty pissed. Almost bit my head off. Talking about Uchiha here'n'there, and mind control and stuff like that. If you ask me, 's all just conspiracy stuff, but what can you do?"

Indeed.

What could you do?

* * *

THE END

* * *

 **AN:** And that's a wrap. I hope you had fun; I tried to keep this story novella length and somewhat more upbeat in tone than T7A.

PS: If you liked this story, please consider reading my current project 'Rokudaime', which follows Naruto and Shikamaru in a different setting. The story updates weekly.

Eilyfe


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